Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s school education department has poorly performed in enrollment of out of school children over the past few years. Out of 27,355 out-of-school children (OoSC), there are only 600 children who have joined schools in last two years.
The move has thrown an open challenge for the authorities in the school education department to motivate the children to join the schools.
In the last two years, the state government had claimed that 10900 students out of 27,355 OoSC in the J&K state will be enrolled in schools. However, the claims have fallen flat owing the government’s failure to motivate the students.
As per the MHRD guidelines, a child in age group of 6-14 years is considered out-of-school if he has never been enrolled in an elementary school or if after enrolment has been absent without prior intimation for 45 days or more. An official told KNO that the performance of state was very poor in bringing children to schools. “Only 600 students have joined the schools,” an official said.
Giving details about the process, the official told KNO that against the target of 27,355 OSC, 4,136 children who were never enrolled in the schools were registered in non-residential special training centres (NRSTC) out of which only 600 have been shifted to normal schools after proper evaluation of their performance.
“In NRSTCs, the department engages in-service teachers to work during off hours and counsel the OoSC and provide them books, school bags, uniform and other stationery item to attract them towards schools,” the official told KNO.
Meanwhile, an official told KNO that most of the NRSTCs were not functional in the villages due to which less number of children joined the schools. In past the government had also constituted a committee to make efforts to increase the enrollment in schools and control dropout rate in schools.
“But the committee couldn’t succeed in bringing back these children to schools,” the official told KNO. Director School Education Kashmir (DSEK) told KNO that the efforts were on to arrest the dropout rate in schools and enroll out of school children in schools. “We have carried several enrollment drives in almost every village. A good number of students have joined the schools but a more needs to be done in this regard,” he said.
