Giving wings to slum kids awaiting for a support, a concept, ‘Padna Ab Nahi Kathin Nahi Hai’ (PANKH), initiated by the Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) in January last has been successful in enrolling 9,800 slum kids from urban vicinities across the State.
Approximately, 3,000 dropout kids from the Capital city alone have been enrolled in the government schools under this innovative programme. The council is gearing up to declare the State Capital as the first zero drop-out urban body.
JEPC Project Director Mukesh Kumar said that the results are encouraging and with this upshot soon Ranchi will clutch the coveted tag of the first Zero Dropout urban body. Initiated with the aim to cover all such underprivileged kids who are out of the schools doing odd jobs, the drive will continue further. To ensure the regularity of drop out students who have been admitted under this programme, a rigorous verification drive under PANKH-2 will be started after summer vacation under the supervision of senior officers of JEPC.
“The project that was started separately, however, during the launch of ‘Vidyalaya Chale Challein Abhiyaan’ in April, PANKH project was merged with it with the aim to achieve the ‘Zero drop-out’ vision at the earliest. We are compiling the figures and comparing the data with all the 24 districts. Soon a composite data of slums children admitted in schools will be prepared. Ranchi so far has admitted quite a number of slum kids,” said the Project Director.
The scheme was formally inaugurated by the Minister of School Education and literacy, Neera Yadav from Hatia seeks to admit all the underprivileged kids residing in slums areas of different cities who do not have any accessibility to any proper mode of academics. This is one major step of the State government to curb the dropout rate and to augment the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER).
The project caters to the need of urban poor kids and dropouts. The collaboration with private schools for bridging the gaps between haves and have-nots are also on cards. Under the project, all resourceful materials like books, pencils, study matters are provided to kids by the State government. Slum children are given special classes before they are officially admitted at the nearest government cradles.
The council that linked the public in this project as one key stakeholder through various social media platforms, in the coming days will be expanded by ensuring equal participation of college-goers who can assist the council in reaching out to deprived kids in slum pockets and by lending their support in imparting education to deprived kids. Some more methodologies for increasing enrollment ratio are to be adopted by JEPC considering the conditions of other
districts.