In order to attract tribal children towards education, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday asked the School and Mass Education Department to introduce syllabus and teaching in 19 tribal languages.

Mother tongue based education would  attract pre-school tribal children to come to schools and Anganwadis, the Chief Minister said and asked the officials to develop new books in tribal languages.

Addressing the fourth Governing Body meeting of the OPEPA and Rastriya Madhymika Shiksha Abhiyan held at the State Secretariat here, Patnaik said that considering the success rate of mother tongue based education in 10 tribal languages in eight district, the School and Mass Education Department in coordination with the SC and ST Development Department should prepare books in nine other tribal languages in rest of the ten districts.

After the meeting, School and Mass Education Minister Rabi Narayan Nanda said that with the implementation of Sarva Sikhya Abhiyan (SSA), while there has been an increase in enrolment in schools, the drop out has reduced remarkably. During the 2002-03, while the dropout was 10 lakh, it came down to only 19,000 in 2012-13.  Similarly, gender gap has reduced to 0.11 per cent against 9.14 per cent in 2002-03, he said.

He said that it was decided to open another 1,188 high school in the State under the Rastriya Madyamika Shiksa Abhiyan within one year's time.  In order to ensure quality education in secondary level, the State Government has already created 18,000 new posts of teachers and initiated process of recruitment in high schools. Besides, every year, 45,000 teachers were being given training to upgrade their teaching skills annually since 2010, he said.

Nanda said that the State Government had taken steps to reduce the teacher -pupil ratio in both secondary and primary school level and introduce model student- friendly teaching system to reduce stress among the students.