Sir,
Despite immense support and efforts from the Government to assist various schools and students in the State, the educational scenario is not at all encouraging. The dropout rate and low literacy level seems unstoppable and the situation is alarming. This is a concern that our respected officials, right from the Principal Secretary down to the district administrators, should take a note.
School dropout is also a global problem but with varied reasons and causes, depending on the local situation. In our case, the need of the hour is to have clear data pertaining to causes of school or college dropouts. Then only a solution can be contemplated to tackle theproblem.
As a matter of fact, a thorough study should be conducted as to what leads school children to drop out. And, this is exclusively the environment within the school system. Some of these factors can be poor academic performance as a result of a confusion and inadequate foundation while in the primary level. Poor teaching methodology and lack of inspiring activity and creativity definitely dilute the enthusiasm and interest of the learners. In urban areas, most of the kids are deeply influenced by other social evils such as alcohols, drugs, etc that have distracted their goal in education. These are some of the push and pull factors of dropouts. In this manner, if we can categorize the causes accordingly with some precision in terms of percentage, then perhaps we can channel the resources and address the problem categorically.
K Ravi, E-237, GGP Colony, Bhubaneswar-751025,M-9437616497