Visakhapatnam: Mismatch in dropout number and attendance of students

Visakhapatnam: The corruption in the school education system is unravelling with the introduction of online daily attendance reporting system. In a startling fact, the department of school education has found that student dropout number reported by the schools from various districts is far from the actual scenario. For instance, the number of dropouts as per the reports from school was considered to be 13,000. But, it was found to be over 39,000 through a recent survey, said the project director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Vizianagaram.

“We are finding out how many children are out of school through a survey as the data submitted by us by the schools were not right,” he said. The situation is same in almost all districts. The SSA officials, however, added that the biometric attendance machines at many schools are not functioning and stressed on the need of orientation programmes to train the teachers for the e-Hazar system.   

The daily attendance report of schools in all districts being uploaded on the department of school education website for Midday meal scheme also shows that the average attendance in all districts compared to the enrolled strength is never touching 50 per cent. For example, the number of school students (primary and upper primary) enrolled in Visakhapatnam is 2,62,461.  In June and July months about 18 lakh and 31 lakh students attended schools in the district, which means the monthly average of the attendance has not even touched 40 per cent in July and it is much poorer in June.  

The statistics of all the districts are no different indicating either the attendance is poor or the student enrollment number has been reported false. On the other hand, the teacher association leaders complain that bio-metric machines are facing a number of technical glitches and also raised the issue of the poor signal of the attendance devices in rural areas.