The Hindu : New Delhi News : Onus on Class V teachers to bring children back to schools

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 15, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Onus on Class V teachers to bring children back to schools

Sujay Mehdudia

Major reforms initiated to cut dropout rate; computerised tracking to check fraud

NEW DELHI: Concerned over the sharp increase in the dropout rate in government schools, the Delhi Government has initiated major reforms in the admission process doing away with conditions like production of birth certificate and mention of father's name at the time of admission.

A computerised student tracking system is being introduced to successfully implement the new "zero rejection policy'' and check fraudulent enrolments every year.

Similarly, teachers of Class V in schools run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and principals of Delhi Government schools have been made responsible for getting children admitted to Class VI. "No embarrassing questions will be asked from parents or students. That is the reason why we have decided to do away with the requirement of producing a birth certificate and mentioning father's name. Our study has shown that these were major deterrents in preventing children from the lower strata as well as the various elementary learning schools run by non-government organisations in getting admission in Delhi Government schools,'' said the Secretary (Education), Reena Ray.

The Education Minister, Arvinder Singh Lovely, said 4,000 new teachers were being recruited just for the purpose of bringing children at the lower level into the mainstream by taking up the responsibility of their admissions. The Class V teachers have been made responsible to ensure that children do not dropout of schools and if any such thing takes place then they should track them down and impress upon the parents to send their children to schools.

Stating that the new policy had already started producing results, Ms. Ray credited Mr. Lovely and the Director (Education), Vijay Kumar, with taking these important steps to make education actually accessible to children across various sections. In another policy decision aimed at checking enrolment of fake admissions, Mr. Ray informed that under the new admission norms, all the 3,000 Universal Elementary Education learning centres teaching nearly 1.3 lakh children have been asked to furnish complete name, address and other details of the child to enable the department to track them down throughout their schooling till Class X. These children would be given identity numbers to ensure easy identity as this would also ensure that fake admissions are checked at the very basic level.

These steps have already started bearing results with around 80,000 new admissions being reported from various sources. She informed that 28,000 children have been enrolled in the MCD schools through the UEE learning centres run by the NGOs.

The NGOs have been asked to furnish complete details of the children they are getting admitted. Similarly a tie-up has been brought about between MCD and the Social Welfare Department where unnoticed children between 0-6 years would be identified and given automatic admissions.

Already 20,000 such children have come for admission and the exact numbers would be available only after June 30 when admissions close.

"It is a child-friendly initiative that would help track down children and get them enrolled in various schools. For this, the 3,800 anganwadi centres of the Delhi Government have also been sounded.

The ultimate objective is to bring down the dropout rate -- that presently runs into lakhs -- to a zero level in the next few years,'' she added.

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