In an attempt to attract students to the Government schools presently plagued by dwindling enrollments, the primary education department of Uttarakhand kick-started a ‘School Chalo Abhiyan’ across the State on Wednesday. The department has also decided to organise such drives on sixth day of every month. The activeness of the otherwise slothful department for the drive could be gauged from the fact that all officers were entrusted with the task of visiting schools on the day and encourage the teachers.
The Director General (DG) of School education, D Senthil Pandian was himself present at Government Primary school Ajabpur Danda for the drive and opening of model school.
The Primary education Director, Seema Jaunsari also visited many schools in Pauri district on the day. Speaking to The Pioneer, she said that the initial figures suggest that the drive was successful though the exact numbers would be available later.
She said that all senior officers of the department were entrusted with task of visiting schools in the area assigned to them. Jaunsari said that teachers are directed to target all the out of school children between age group 6 to 14 for enrollment in the schools.
The department had initiated similar drive last year in which more than 25,000 students were admitted in the schools. In the drive the teachers would inform the benefits like Mid Day Meal (MDM), free textbooks, free uniforms and better quality of teachers in the Government schools to common people.
The co-curricular activities, sports, scholarship programmes, computer education and Child health programmes would also be discussed by the teachers. The District Education Officers (DEO), Block Education Officers (BEO), block and cluster coordinators would visit the schools with fewer enrollments and undertake measures to improve the number of students.
It is a common knowledge that the education department is presently under scanner due to the decrease in number of the students in Government schools. Various data suggests that private schools are fast catching up with the government schools even in rural areas notwithstanding the fact that the State Government has doubled the budget on education since 2009.
The schools located in the remote and mountainous parts of the state are worst affected and hundreds of them on brink of closure due to absence of enrollments.