Even as the district education authorities are implementing several projects to ensure that more children join the government and aided schools, high dropout among students continues to be a reality in schools in Kozhikode. To bring down the dropout rates and encourage students to regularly attend their classes, the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) along with child welfare organisations are planning to strengthen the functioning of various bodies in schools.
According to the DCPU authorities, the activities will commence in the upcoming academic year and will be carried out in three steps. “In the first step, we will strengthen the working of the School Protection Groups (SPGs) which include police officers," said DCPU officer Joseph Rebello. The SPGs are responsible for handling juvenile offences and preventing unlawful activities taking place in the vicinity of the schools. As the second step, more training and coaching programmes will be conducted for the 'Jagratha Samithis', which consists of school teachers, parents and a students’ representative. In the final step, counsellors will be appointed in each school in the district. “Individual counselling sessions will be conducted for students so that their familial and personal issues can be discussed and sorted out," he said. He said the authorities had already started counselling several dropout children in the district and have asked them to rejoin schools.
As per the reports and vulnerability map recently prepared by the District Childline, as many as 48 children have dropped out of the school in the past two financial years. The highest number of dropouts were reported from Balussery grama panchayat. Meanwhile, according to officers working with the Our Responsibility to Children (ORC) project, as per their survey, a total of 238 students studying in 24 schools have dropped out in the past four years. “While some students drop out due to financial issues at home, some lose interest in studies once they start earning an income out of part-time jobs," said ORC district programme officer Prabitha T P.
To create a comprehensive action plan on the measures to tackle dropouts, a meeting of the child protection authorities and district administration officers will be convened on June 6.
