Goa has highest percentage of kids with disabilities in school in country: UN report

PANAJI: At 73.4%, Goa has the highest percentage of its children living with

disabilities

attending school, a

UN report

has stated. Kerala is close behind at 73.2%.

At 17.3%, the state, along with Maharashtra and Kerala, also has the least percentage of children with disabilities who have never attended school.

The figures are as per the ‘State of the Education Report for India 2019: Children with Disabilities’ of the UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation and covers the 5 to 19 age group.

“Variation in school attendance between states is evident, with Goa and Kerala having a higher percentage of children with disabilities attending schools. Union territories of Daman and Diu, and Lakshadweep, have more girls attending

schools

than boys. Odisha and West Bengal have more dropouts than the national average. Over a third of the children with disabilities in the Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland have never attended an educational institution,” the report states.

In Goa, girls with disabilities in the age group were more likely to have never attended an educational institution before. As per the report, 18% females as against 16.7% males had not been to any school.

But when it came to dropping out of school, at 9.9% boys were more likely to opt out, in comparison to 8.7% girls.

The study, however, points to a relatively lower population of children with disabilities in Goa, possibly making the numbers more manageable.

Goa has a population of slightly over 5,000 children with disabilities in the age group of 5 to 19, while most other states were dealing with numbers running into lakhs.

“Reported numbers of children with disabilities vary widely from state to state. Populous states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar and West Bengal show higher numbers of children with disabilities in the 5-19 age group, while less populous states like Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa show fewer,” states the report.

Goa is also among a handful of states to have a state advisory board with experts to advise on matters relating to children with disabilities, states the report.

On the downside though, Goa has the least number of disabled-friendly toilets in regular schools and only around 114 children with disabilities in Goa, however, have made it to higher secondary school, as per the report.

“Less than 10 percent of schools in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura and Uttarakhand have disabled-friendly toilets,” said the report.