BAHRAICH (JARWAL) The principal and five teachers at Primary School (Rithora) in Jarwal development block of Bahraich have a tough job at hand as the harvesting season draws closer. The fear of students not coming to school during this period is giving them sleepless nights. Normally, the attendance in this school is pegged between 65% and 68%, but during the harvesting and sowing season, it drops to about 50% that adversely impacts learning outcome of absentee students.
Ramesh and Suresh (name changed), students of this government school, usually skip their classes around Diwali period to join their father in the agricultural field for harvesting. They are not alone. The school has several other children who join their parents during the harvesting period. The parents deliberately engage children at an early age to inculcate know-how of harvesting in them.
The principal Vijay Bahadur said, “There are 176 students (93 boys and 83 girls) here. A large number of them will skip classes around Diwali. While boys will join their fathers on the fields, daughters will stay home to look after their younger siblings. This is a perennial problem in most of the schools in the district. We are trying to address the issue this year with ‘Bulawa Toli’ of children, phone calls, home visits by teachers and help from the school management committee.”
“Unicef, with support from the UP government, has implemented an early warning system to reduce student dropout rates. The system starts tracking students who are absent for 3 days, and then contacts their parents/guardians to ensure they return to school. The system is currently in place in Gonda, Bahraich, Balrampur, and Shravasti,” said basic shiksha adhikari (district education officer) AK Singh.
{{/usCountry}}“Unicef, with support from the UP government, has implemented an early warning system to reduce student dropout rates. The system starts tracking students who are absent for 3 days, and then contacts their parents/guardians to ensure they return to school. The system is currently in place in Gonda, Bahraich, Balrampur, and Shravasti,” said basic shiksha adhikari (district education officer) AK Singh.
{{/usCountry}}Early warning system (EWS) is a mechanism to alert schools about children who are at risk of discontinuing studies. It operates by closely monitoring each student’s attendance. If a student is absent from school for three days, education authorities contact parents and make efforts to facilitate the child’s return to the institution.
There are 2,803 government primary and upper primary schools in the district and total student strength is around 4.60 lakh. “I have directed all block education officers to implement EWS to check school dropout during harvesting season. “It will be a huge challenge for all of us, but we are trying to address this problem from this academic season,” he added.
The principal said, “If the child does not turn up for 3 days, we send the ‘Bulawa Toli’ of children, and if needed make phone calls, conduct home visits and take support from school management committee (SMC) to convince parents to send the child back to school. The visit by the SMC members is far more effective than sending a teacher alone. Parents will listen to their own community members rather than teachers who hail from another district.”
Begur Ramachandra Rao, a senior education specialist, UNICEF, New Delhi, said: “I was impressed with the commitment and support of political and administrative leadership in the rollout of early warning system in the state of UP.”