After four consecutive years of falling enrolment numbers, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) will carry out an intensive door-to-door survey and admission drive for its primary schools from June 27 till July 8.
As reported by The Hindu on June 16, the SDMC’s 579 primary schools had seen four consecutive years of decreasing enrolment — from 3.40 lakh students in 2012-13 to 3.21 lakh in 2013-14 to 3.11 lakh in 2014-15, and finally to 2.94 lakh in 2015-16.
Besides enrolment, the average attendance of students in the SDMC’s schools had also gone down from 63 per cent in 2012-13 to 58.70 per cent in 2015-16.
Recognising the need to improve enrolment, the SDMC’s Education Department on Wednesday passed an order directing all school principals to organise the door-to-door surveys and enrolment drives from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
“We have similar drives each year, but this year it will be more intensive,” said SDMC spokesperson Mukesh Yadav.
The drive will begin with principals mapping the area near their schools, especially taking into account slum clusters, JJ colonies, unauthorised colonies, construction sites, tea shops and other places where children tend to be out of the formal education system.
The teachers will identify children who are not enrolled in any school, counsel them and their parents to get them to sign up for their local municipal school and give them admission forms. The data of the survey will be uploaded online every day for senior officials to monitor the progress of the survey.
Last year, the SDMC managed to add about 12,000 new students during the enrolment drive, said Mr. Yadav. In 2014, a similar drive saw 12,050 students being added to the rolls. While the ruling-BJP had seen this as an achievement, the Opposition Congress had said that these students would have sought admission even without conducting a special drive.
