Edu dept focuses on school dropouts

Hubballi: The education department has intensified its survey of out-of-school children and those hwo were never enrolled across the state.
The department has found that 64,003 children were out of school for the 2022–23 academic year. For this reason, the department decided to conduct an extensive survey till January 5.
All steps will be taken regarding activities to be carried out in the district, taluk cluster, school, and residential areas for children to get enrolled.
The district has found 375 children who never joined any school and 216 children who took transfer certificates before COVID-19 and did not get admission in any school in the district. The department has formed teams to find out about these children.
A source said that the Samagra Shikshan Karnataka’s yojana director asked for the survey.
When a survey was conducted in the Nelamangala taluk of Bengaluru rural district, officials found a huge discrepancy between the number and details of children in the records with schools and the information on the departmental website SATS.
According to the SATS statistics, more children were found to be out of school.
The intention of the survey, which started on December 28, is to get children back to school.
The state education department will get a clearer picture about the children, said Samagar Shikshan Karnataka assistant project coordinator and nodal officer Prakash Bhutali.
He said that headmasters and officials had visited many places surrounding the school areas, industrial areas and other major places.
“Till now, we have found 300 children not enrolled in any school. The list will be sent to the state government. Finally, the overall list will be sent to the HRD ministry,” he said.
Visiting officers GN Matapathi and SM Hudedamani said: “We have found some children were not admitted to any school.”
The officials are also looking for children who were never put in schools in slum areas, industrial clusters and and other places. “We have found that some labourers migrated along with their children and are working in sugarcane fields near Kalghatagi taluk. The department has directed that migrated children too should get education in the nearest schools. Some children took Transfer certificates before Covid-19 and later did not get admitted to any school,” an official said.