New Delhi, June 24: Next Monday, the Prime Minister will be huddled with National Development Council members for hours, figuring out how to put all the country’s children in school.

The council’s June 27-28 meeting will devote an entire session to discussing the status of primary education in the country.

Prodded by United Progressive Alliance chairman Sonia Gandhi, who wants the government to focus on social sectors like health and education, Manmohan Singh has taken special interest in the progress of primary education and the implementation of the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

The ruling alliance’s common minimum programme promises to raise spending on education to at least 6 per cent of the gross domestic product. The document says half of this amount should be spent on primary and secondary education.

The council is meeting after two years and a half. That it has earmarked a full session for primary education shows the government’s keenness to honour its pre-poll commitment to promote universal education, human resource development ministry officials say.

One objective of the council would be to get the sluggish states to implement the Abhiyan properly. The human resource development ministry argues that the Centre cannot bring the errant states to heel since education is on the concurrent list.

States like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal continue to be “problem areas”, left far behind by the southern states in primary education.

The Abhiyan, however, is running behind schedule. It originally aimed at putting all children between six and 14 in school by 2003. The latest annual report of the ministry claims that the number of out-of-school children fell from 2.3 crore at the beginning of 2003-04 to 81 lakh on September 30, 2004. But ministry sources suggest the figures supplied by the states are exaggerated.

The ministry has now drafted 42 national social science institutes to carry out an on-the-spot study of how well or badly the states are running the Abhiyan.

The council is likely to discuss the 2 per cent education cess the government has introduced. The expected annual revenue of Rs 4,000-Rs 5,000 crore will fund the Abhiyan and the mid-day meal scheme.

The council will take a look at the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme, too. The southern states, especially Tamil Nadu, have drawn praise from the Centre for the way they have been managing it, but Bihar and Bengal are still to come up to mark.