Causes of Academic Backwardness of Rural School Children in Selected States of India: An Evaluation

Most of the states in India are facing the problems of academic backwardness especially in rural villages. Academic stress in children can be present as physical, behavioral or emotional problems. The causes for a rural child being poor in academics are varied and range from physical causes to psychological causes the later being more common. Present study was carried out in order to find out the reasons of academic backwardness among rural school children between the age group of 11-17 years and to provide results based remedial solutions and interventions. For this purpose, samples were selected from different villages of nine states in India which includes Assam (Jorhat), Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad), Haryana (Hissar), Himachal Pradesh (Palampur), Uttar Pradesh (Pantnagar), Rajasthan (Udaipur), Maharashtra (Parbhani), Punjab (Ludhiana), Uttarakhand (Dharwad). The academic achievement of school children was used and covers three major aspects on health, academics and family. Data analysis was done using frequency, percentage distribution and Chi-square test. Results revealed that in the eight states, the academic factor was the cause of the students’ poor achievement while in one state, Parbhani, health is the risk factor to the students’ academic achievement.