AP has 46,138 school dropouts; efforts on to enrol them back into schools

AP government has taken up an enrolment drive of Out-of-School Children by involving all stakeholder departments through the Consistent Rhythm App (CR App).

In particular, it has roped in the then village / ward volunteers and village / ward secretariat staff members to identify the school dropouts. Accordingly, the school education department identified 2,10,917 children.

The department of school education took up a special drive and enrolled 1,49,106 children back into the schools, with 63,473 continuing as school dropouts. In another spell of special campaign for enrolment of school dropouts, the school education authorities enrolled 17,335 school dropouts. With this, there are 46,138 school dropouts, who are yet to be enrolled in schools.

District-wise, the school dropouts are: Alluri Sitarama Raju – 2,250; Visakhapatnam – 1,568; Anakapalli – 531; Vizianagaram – 665; Srikakulam – 757; NTR –1,859; Krishna – 927; Kakinada – 2,585; Eluru – 1,163; East Godavari – 1,610; West Godavari – 671; Konaseema – 653; Manyam – 330; Palnadu – 2,919; Guntur – 2,664; Prakasam – 2,722; Nellore – 5,076; Bapatla – 1,778; Kurnool – 3,789; Tirupati – 2,559; Kadapa – 2,401; Annamayya – 1,540; Chittoor – 1,697; Sri Sathya Sai – 1,263; Nandyal – 904 and Anantapur – 1,257.

In a bid to enrol these school dropouts, the Samagra Siksha authorities are running special training centres during 2024–25, along with seasonal hostels for the benefit of students whose parents migrate to other places in search of seasonal work. Seasonal hostels have already started in Krishna, Kurnool and NTR districts.

School education authorities are, however, facing some tough challenges to bring back the dropouts back to schools, owing to socio-economic, cultural, traditional and health issues.

Samagra Siksha project director B. Srinivasa Rao said, “We are making all efforts to bring back the Out-of-School children to schools, even though identifying them is a big task.”