Pass or fail, grow in Uttar Pradesh schools with age

Children aged between six and 14 years  in Uttar Pradesh, who have had no prior schooling, would now get admissions in primary schools according to their age and not on the basis of the last class passed, under a unique arrangement worked out by the UP Basic Shiksha Parishad.

The new scheme is expected to go a long way in drawing lakhs of children, hitherto deprived of basic education, to schools.

At the same time, it would also help in cutting down the dropout rate drastically.

“Till now, children, mainly from the backward and poor classes, without any earlier schooling were admitted to schools in standard I, regardless of their age. Even an eight or 10-year-old child going to school for the first time would have to start studies in class I,” explains a senior education department official. But, under the new scheme of things, a child aged eight would be admitted to standard III, according to his / her age.

The state programme director for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan  (education for all) in Uttar Pradesh, K Ram Mohan Rao issued orders to this effect recently.

Every school would have two specially trained teachers to help such fresh students getting admission to a higher class cope with their studies, he said.

The training of the teachers has already begun, and the new arrangement for fresh admissions would be implemented in the session beginning July 2011.

The children admitted thus would undergo a specially designed course for six months before attending classes with the other students.