At least 4,000 new students have been enrolled in South Delhi municipal schools in the past one week, civic body officials said on Saturday.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s school enrolment drive, which started on June 14 and will go on till June 30, seems to be going well. While such drives are carried out every year, this year, South Delhi teachers have changed their modus operandi. This time, children from the area who are already enrolled in the local municipal school will accompany the officials to motivate their peers. By using slogans like “school chalo”, the children are hoping to get new classmates this academic year.
“As of Thursday evening, we had enrolled 4,400 children into our schools,” said SDMC Education Committee chairperson Ashish Sood.
The drive is focused on increasing primary school admissions of children from underprivileged backgrounds and aged between five and 11 years. Thousands of teachers as well as volunteers are going door-to-door in unauthorised colonies, slum clusters, and urbanised villages and enrolling students on the spot.
The SDMC has made it easier for students to enrol by getting rid of lengthy paperwork. Since most of the children are migrants who lack residence proof or birth certificates, all they need to enrol their children is a name and a phone number.
Senior officials said the target was to add 10,000 students and that there were enough empty seats to accommodate the newcomers.
“We have 589 schools with 3.2 lakh students currently. If we look at the census figures, there are probably 25,000 to 30,000 children in South Delhi who don’t go to school. But given the socio-economic factors, if we end up enrolling 10,000 new students, it will be a big achievement,” said the official.
The corporation is trying to get children from economically weaker sections into classrooms instead of workplaces. This is leading to resistance from some parents. “We are having problems with children who have become breadwinners for their families. But, we are enrolling them and will counsel them to make sure they turn up on July 1, when schools re-open,” said Mr. Sood.
