Education dept rushes to bring back 15k out of school kids by month-end
BENGALURU: As many as 27,725 students are out of schools in the rural areas of the state and the numbers for pan Karnataka are expected to go up further. Education Department officials say that clear figures are yet to come in from the Urban Development Department (UDD) and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
The department is working against the clock as district officials are said to have been given a target to mainstream all children by the end of November. The department has so far mainstreamed 11,832 children, as per official statistics from the Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (SSK) Department on Thursday.
The Education Department is compiling and cleaning data of out-of-school children, which includes those who have never been enrolled in school and those who dropped out. To trace the first category is an arduous task, admitted an official. To trace children who have never ever gone to school, ground level staff are making house-to-house visits and collecting data.
Students who have dropped out are being traced through their previous schools. A senior official added that attendance officers who work at the school level also traced where the child has gone -- if found in a different school, then the database is updated. If the child is not attending school, then they are convinced to rejoin.
The action comes following PIL filed in the high court. Parallely, the Education Department is also trying to rectify the school admission stalemate by ordering private schools to provide transfer certificates to students who want to enrol in other schools.
