E-Paper
560 students dropped out of government schools in 2022-23 in Ludhiana district
Around 90% of the students who dropped out in the previous academic year 2022-2023 were from families where their parents work as manual labourers
: At a time when the state education department is pushing for enrolling a record number of students in government schools, around 560 students in the district dropped out of the state-run academic institutes in the district in 2022-23, as per the official data of the education department.
The students who do not attend classes, take part in school activities and sit in exams due to various reasons are considered dropouts. The students who shifted from one school to another are not considered dropouts.
The majority, around 90% of the students who dropped out in the previous academic year 2022-2023 came from a working-class background where their parents work as manual labourers. The majority of the schools that recorded dropouts fall in rural areas of the district, including Jagraon, Mullapur, Doraha amd Dehlon.
The education department had sought information from the schools in February regarding the dropout students. The data collected included the occupation of parents, address, age, class and whether the student has got admission in another school.
Sukhdarshan Singh, a teacher from a government school in Kot Mangal said that the minimum criteria for an absence of 10 days without any reason or leave has been fixed for a student to be considered a dropout.
“Most of the students belong to migrant families, when the families go back to their hometowns or shift their location in search of work, the students cease to attend the classes,” he said.
He said that as the entire data regarding the students has been put online, it has become very easy to ascertain the number of students who have dropped out of school. The student cannot get admission to another school without getting the school leaving certificate which is issued by the school.
He said that the students should be motivated to get back to the classrooms.
The data collected by the education department also mentions whether the student has been contacted by the schools to restart education. As per the rules of the education department, a dropout student has the option to get readmitted to the same class and a gap of two years is acceptable.
District education officer Harjit Singh said that the data has been maintained to avoid any duplicity in the number of students enrolled at the schools. He added that schools have been directed to visit the homes of the students to counsel them to get back to schools.
