VIJAYAWADA: Non-Residential Training Centres (NRSTC) will be set up in the State to ensure that quality education is provided by volunteers to school dropouts. State project director of Samagra Siksha has issued instructions to establish NRSTCs for the 2023-24 academic year and also to constitute village committees to identify children, aged 6 and 14 years old, who have dropped out of school. Samagra Siksha is taking steps to establish these training centres with the aim of implementing compulsory primary education for 11,331 children, identified as dropouts, across the State.
In October 2022, the department of school education had identified 1.75 lakh children who had dropped out of school. Following several steps, all except 26,000 were brought back to the classroom.The officials learnt that of the 26,000 school dropouts, some had crossed 14 years of age, while some either migrated or unfortunately died.
To cater to children of seasonal migrants, the government established seasonal hostels across the State. Except for a few, all the others were mainstreamed. However, there were still 12,000 children of seasonal migrants that were not going to school and hence were enrolled into seasonal hostels.
The State government has now decided to establish the special training centres for dropouts and also appoint qualified teachers on a contract basis to conduct an orientation programme to train volunteers for five days.
Additionally, commissioner for School Education S Suresh Kumar recently issued directions to constitute committees at the village level to identify school dropouts ahead of the upcoming academic year.
Suresh Kumar said, “We are taking measures to bring back all the students to the classrooms and control the number of dropouts at the ground level by involving village, welfare and education assistants. We have issued orders to constitute a committee, comprising headmaster of the school, welfare and education assistant and parent committee chairman. These officials will work during the summer vacation to enrol children to training centres.”