Around 500 dropouts yet to be traced in Mangalore

Information on 860 of the targeted 1,470 students has been obtained

July 31, 2014 11:51 am | Updated 11:51 am IST - MANGALORE:

This year, notices will be sent to parents and headmaster if a student remains absent for seven days. File photo.

This year, notices will be sent to parents and headmaster if a student remains absent for seven days. File photo.

With only two days left for the authorities to get details about the students who have dropped out of school, the authorities are yet to get information about around 500 dropouts.

They have, however, gathered information about 860 of the 1,470 students who have to be brought back to schools. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan District Coordinator N. Shivaprakash said the target is to bringing back 1,470 students to schools in seven educational blocks in the district.

“Good work is being done by education coordinators and teachers. We hope to achieve the target within the scheduled period,” he said.

Emphasis this year, Mr. Shivaprakash said, was to issue notices to headmaster and parents if a student was absent for seven continuous days, as required under a new rule. Earlier, notices were being issued if the student was absent for 60 days.

As many as 35 education coordinators (five for each educational block), who are acting as attendance officers, have been closely monitoring attendance.

Issuance of notices, that has been sped up since June, had led parents to bring back students to school, Mr. Shivaprakash said. For example, “parents of two children brought them back to school in Sullia”, he said. The headmasters were also on their toes and had initiated action as soon as the child remained absent for more than three days, he said.

Force needed

There have been a few cases of absenteeism where they had to make use of police and revenue authorities to get the students back to school, as authorised by the State government. In one case, chief executive officer Thulasi Maddineni had to visit Sullia a few weeks ago to meet a woman, who did not want to send her three children to school till her husband, who was living separately, returned home.

Her children were brought to a government hostel in Kadri and were now being sent to school, Mr. Shivaprakash said. “A few weeks later the woman’s husband returned home,” he said.

Among the seven education blocks, authorities in Mangalore South block have to find information about 191 dropouts – the children of migrant labourers working in different construction sites. “We will be collecting information from the sites their parents worked and then incorporate these details in the Child Tracking Software to find more information,” Mr. Shivaprakash said. In the remaining six blocks there were fewer children who were yet to be untraced, he added.

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