Uttarakhand records nearly 100% student enrollment

Uttarakhand has achieved nearly 100% enrollment of students in schools this year and the drop out percentage has come down to mere 0.31% from 15% in 2000-01.
    
Of the 18.06 lakh children in the age group of 6-14 years in the state, 17.97 lakh (99.50%) have been enrolled in various schools, Uttarakhand Government officials said here.

"The drop out percentage has come down from 15% as per 2000-2001 census to 0.31% at present," they said. In the last three years, 613 new schools and 594 upper primary schools have been set up under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the hill state, the officials said.
    
The government has been implementing several innovative schemes like 'Sapno ki Udan', 'Pahal' and 'Muskan' under the Centre's flagship programme to improve the quality and reach of education in the State.

The salient features of 'Sapno ki Udan' include organising 'Mobile Schools' to reach out to the children and their parents, to identify and mainstream 'Out-of-School' children, hosting community and educational fairs and conducting regular health camps, Radhika Jha, the State Project Director of SSA, told a visiting team of journalists.
    
"The Mobile Schools/Multi Purpose Vehicle are equipped with projector, computer library, learning material and other necessary tools. These vehicles are used to provide mobile schooling as well as to extend awareness and motivational campaigns among the masses," she said.

"SSA helped our school in a big way. All the children of our school belong to BPL families. We did not have basic infrastructure earlier. Now we have chairs, benches and other basic things," Deepa Semwal, in-charge Head Mistress of the
Primary School at a slum in Dehradun, said.

"Health camps are also conducted at our school. We also tell the children and their parents about the need to maintain good hygiene at home," she said.

'Pahal' is an initiative under PPP (public private partnership) mode for providing school education to 'never- enrolled' and drop-out children in the age-group of 6-14 years belonging to vulnerable sections like rag-pickers, beggars and scavengers.

The programme has benefited nearly 763 children in Udham Singh Nagar, Nainital and Haridwar districts, officials said.
   
'Muskaan' is another successful programme that aims at ensuring education of children of migrant labourers from states like UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The programme, which had won appreciation from the Centre, was initially implemented in Nainital under SSA.

A certificate mentioning the ability of the student is given when the parents migrate to another place so that the child can be admitted to a school there.

As many as 3,191 children, studying at 39 centres in Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar, Haridwar and Dehradun are benefiting from the 'Muskan' programme, the officials said.

The schools in Uttarakhand have management committees the members of which meet the parents, generally from the underprivileged sections of the society, and convince them to send their children to the school.

"The parents of the children are extremely poor. They are involved in things like rag-picking. We tell them to send the children to school. We follow up with the parents to see that their children attend classes regularly," Brij Mohan Sharma,
president of the management committee of a primary school at Ajabpur in the state capital said.

As many as 17,783 women belonging to BPL families have been appointed as 'Bhojan Mata' (women who prepare food) under the mid-day meal scheme.

The scheme, under which free lunch is provided to students on all working days, was also instrumental in increasing the enrollment in the primary schools, the officials added.