Govt to identify migrant kids for admission in schools

JAIPUR: The state education department has directed its teachers to resume non-teaching activities, especially the work related to admissions. The teachers will run a special drive this year to identify children, in the age group of 4-16, of migrant families that have returned from other states to admit these kids in government schools. The drive will start from the first week of July.
The state has asked its teachers carrying out the distribution of grains for the mid-day meal programme in villages and in the neighbourhood to identify the families and inform them of the admission drive they will be starting. “Our aim is not to leave a single child in the school-going age,” said Saurabh Swami, director of the School education, state education department.
The official informed that these children will be given admission in the classes as per their age and their learning outcomes. The state is working on a mechanism to make an assessment of the children’s learning outcomes like reading, comprehension and mathematics in order to allocate them standard.
The state has seen an inflow of 8.37 lakh inbound migrants in the state from other states. There are lakhs others who have migrated without registration with the government. Officials said that they have good number of schools and can accommodate additional children.
Majority of them were engaged in low-income jobs and government education which is free is the only medium. The state is expecting that around 50,000-70,000 migrants will be among the school-going age. Some districts have already taken a lead by starting the survey of those who had arrived from other states. Deepak Yadav, a district collector of Nagaur says that the teachers in the district have already made the database of those who came from outside.
“The counselling of these families who had lost their means of livelihood is very important which is being done by the teachers. Secondly, they have to counsel families to send their wards to our schools,” said Yadav.