The State government on Wednesday submitted an affidavit before the High Court stating it has constituted a high-level committee with representatives of officials from 14 departments related to education and 10 other members to bring Out of School Children (OOSC) back to school.
This is in connection with a suo motu case based on media reports stating that 54,000 students were still out of school despite the RTE Act.
R Devdas, advocate representing the state government, submitted before a division Bench that a child tracking software to trace Out Of School Children in the state has been developed by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) state office. This software will be loaded on the SSA website ssakarntaka.gov.in. “Any person will have an opportunity to report on a OOSC as and when the person comes across such a child. He/she can upload the information directly on the website,” Devdas further said.
In the affidavit, the state government said duration of absence for a child to be considered as OOSC has been re-fixed from the existing 60 days to a duration of seven days. A survey to trace OOSC at school points and track all OOSC through household survey has been taken up.The survey will be conducted from November 13 to 17. In vulnerable clusters both school and household-level tracking in 90 lakh households will be taken up. In non-vulnerable clusters, the survey will be limited to tracing of missing children.
The bench adjourned the case till October 18.