BHUBANESWAR: The School and Mass Education department has announced to begin admission to elementary and secondary grades in government-run schools from Tuesday and complete the process by May 31.
While the admissions will be carried out from 7 am to 9.30 am on all working days, not more than five parents would be allowed at a time into a school for admission of their wards to avoid crowding in wake of the Covid-19 situation.
In a SOS notification issued by the department for school admissions on Monday, headmasters were asked to ensure that Covid-19 guidelines are followed during the admission process.
Parents will be informed about the admission time and schedule through the WhatsApp groups formed for implementation of ‘Odisha Siksha Sanjog’ programme.
The State government has promoted all the students from Class I to IX to the next class for the 2021-22 academic session without conduct of examination due to the ongoing pandemic situation.
The department stated that all admissions based on promotions within a school will not require presence of students or their guardians. Since these are rolling admissions, schools will update their admission register accordingly.
In case of new admission to Class I, the headmasters of primary schools have been asked to collect information from anganwadi centres preferably over telephone or WhatsApp.
While the student is not required to remain present in the school for admission, the headmaster will contact the parent concerned about the formalities over telephone.
“If a parent’s presence is required in a case of new admission, headmaster concerned has to inform him or her about the date and time for arrival at school in order to avoid crowding”, the notification read.
The admission process will be monitored by District Education Officers concerned.
Survey to trace out-of-school children
The Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) has directed district education officers (DEOs) and district coordinators of Samagra Shiksha, a Centrally Sponsored Integrated Scheme for School Education, to carry out a comprehensive door to door survey to identify out-of-school students.
While earlier the survey was limited to children in the age group of 6 to 14 years, this year the age group has been extended to 18 years.
The details of the children who have either dropped out or were never enrolled in the schools will be collected during the exercise.
The officials concerned have been asked to prepare a database of such students by forming teams comprising teachers, village education committee members and SHG members under each Cluster Resource Centre Coordinators (CRCCs).
The data would be used to enrol all such students to schools in the new academic session, said Bhupendra S Poonia, State Coordinator of OSEPA.