Now, a mega survey to count out-of-school kids

As per the new decision, the state government will form a joint committee comprising three officials from the education department and representatives from various NGOs to identify the districts in Maharashtra that has a large number of out-of-school children.

The decision was taken by school education minister Vinod Tawde, following a meeting with NGOs and officials of school education department on Wednesday evening.

During the meeting, the ministers, officials and NGO representatives discussed in details the loopholes of the July 4 survey. Tawde took their advice and suggestions to figure out how such a survey can be conducted properly, in a foolproof manner. Tawde even sought suggestions from the experts on what should be done to get such children back to school.

“The November survey will focus mainly on surveying out-of-school children of brick kiln workers, sugar cane-cutting workers, labourers and others who work in the stone-mines. Our primary focus will be to get them admitted to schools first and make them aware about the importance of education. We will locate all such places in the state with the help of Google maps,” said Tawde.

He added, “We also got to know that many labourers from Vidharbha migrate to Chhatisgarh along with their children and vice versa. During this process, the children drop out from schools. We first plan to chalk out a plan to make a list of such children and how we can rehabilitate them.”

Besides the secretary of school education department and the education commissioner, Farida Lambay from Pratham, social activist Heramb Kulkarni, Deepak Nagargoje of Shantivan, Kisan Chaure of Shramjeevi Sanghatana, Rupesh Kir of Samarthan, Hemangi Joshi of Narottam Sekhseriya foundation, Vrushali Pispati of Mumbai Mobile creche, Dinanath Waghmare of Sangharsh Walmiki were part of the meeting.