The initiative of the district administration to create awareness among the conservative Thottiya Naicker community members in Kadavur block of Karur district led to two school dropouts find their way to school in style on Tuesday.
Karur Collector S. Jayandhi, in her to attempt to ensure that dropouts returned to school, directed the officials of the School Education Department, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Department of Health and Family Welfare, and Revenue Department to arrange for a meeting to counsel the people living in hamlets on the importance of education and about welfare schemes being extended by the State government at Poolampatti in Vadavambadi panchayat of Kadavur taluk. Even as she was speaking on the need to educate children and prevent child marriages, Ms. Jayandhi spotted two children playing nearby. She asked the children why were not in school.
Not a priority
To her surprise, the children said that they had dropped out the previous year and that they play cricket during the day and enjoyed kabaddi after dusk. Studies were the last thing on the minds of their parents.
The children, M. Mohanraj and R.Sasikumar, both aged 12, belonging to communities other than Thottiya Naicker, said they would go to school if they got the opportunity. They said that they had stopped studies after class 6.
Ms. Jayandhi took the children in her car to the nearby Panchayat Union Middle School to drive home the importance of education among the people of the village. Elated Mohanraj and Sasikumar promised her that they would excel in studies to become a doctor and a policeman respectively.
Sasikumar said that he always wanted to become a policeman “only to end the vices such as pan chewing, snuff inhaling, and alcoholism widely prevalent among the people in his village.”
