The Jharkhand Government is aiming to increase attendance of school students in all the districts. The decision came after officials of Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) observed the successful implementation of an initiative named ‘Prayas’ meant to retain students in government schools of the State since 2013. Under the Prayas programme, officials in one block of each of the district are supposed to make constant efforts of attracting students in their respective schools on daily basis. “Attendance of students in most of the government schools has improved. In order to sustain this performance we have instructed all the District Superintendents of Education (DSE) to plan and monitor various grass-root level programmes in their districts following the guidelines of Prayas,” JEPC Administrative Officer Pradip Kumar Choubey said after a monthly review meeting with DSEs of Hazaribag and Ranchi divisions here on Friday.
According to United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) Jharkhand Education Specialist Binay Pattanayak coordinating Prayas with JEPC, the attendance of students in such schools has increased upto 10 per cent. “Block Education Officers are always enthusiastic to work on new methods for proper implementation of Prayas. Concepts like using bell for each period, daily registration of students and displaying photographs of Bal Sansad in the notice board are now seen in most of the schools,” Pattanayak said.
He added, “It is a collective effort of School Management Committees (SMC) and Government officials to work for Prayas.” Besides, Prayas, DSE of most of the districts have been given a deadline of September 30 to seek unutilized funds of the last financial year for construction of additional classrooms from Village Education Committee members.
“Each DSE is asked to submit a report of amount not utilized for civil works in the schools,” Choubey maintained. Similar meeting with other 12 DSE was organized on September 10 by JEPC wherein same instruction were said to be followed, as per sources.