indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

expected the school to do everyth~ng for their children and were not very happy w~th
the government school
(11) Other epidemiological methods
1. The overall l~teracy rate over 6 years of age ln the vlllage was 63 0% It was
s~gn~f~cantly h~gher In males (74 6%) than In females (51 7%, p < 0 05)
2. The proport~on of children studying In the relevant age group In the pnmary, middle
and hlgh school sections were 91 0%, 92 0% and 53 4% resped~vely
3. The proport~on of chlldren between 5 and 15 years not enrolled ~n school was
10 5%
jb) School absenteelsm
(I) Ethnographic methods
Although dunng group d~scuss~ons, many parents felt that the common cause for
staylng away from school was playfulness, the structured queshonna~re showed that
only 8 8% ( 51160) felt that playfulness was a cause for absenteeism, wh~le 30 0% felt
that illness was the cause for school loss A few felt that local fun~tlons, housework and
v~s~ts to other places were also respons~ble for school loss
(11) Other epidemiological methods
School survey
A random survey of 226 ch~ldren showed that work was the cause of absenteelsm in
34 1% of the ch~ldren followed by ~llness rn 29 2%, local fesbvals in 18 6%, and vlslts
outs~de the vlllage in 12 4% of children Playfulness was a cause of absenteeism only
In 1 1% of them The school absence was maxlmum In the m~ddle school level There
were sign~ficantly more g~rls than boys who were absent because of illness (p < 0 05)