Under the SSA, during the years 2007-08, 08-09 and 09-10, the state government was to set up 5,676 upper primary schools in the state to check dropout rates. Of these, the state has managed to set up only 1,677 schools so far, with another 500 commissioned to be set up later this year.

“We had plans to set up about 5,500 upper primary schools, but so far we have come up with about 2,000 schools,” said state School Education Minister Partha De.

In West Bengal, about seven lakh students are out of schools or were never enrolled. Experts, meanwhile, claim that maximum dropout cases are recorded during the transition phase of a student from a primary school (Class I to IV) to an upper primary school (Class I to VIII). Interestingly, in West Bengal, the ratio of primary schools to upper primary schools is about 5.5:1, compared to the national ratio of 3:1.

The school education department has, meanwhile, done a school mapping in the state and identified places where new schools would be set up to maintain the right balance between upper primary schools and primary schools. Also on the agenda of the education department is minimising the distance that children have to cover to reach these upper primary schools.