Tripura registered a sharp decline in school dropout rate in the primary level over the past one year, an official confirmed on Tuesday.
“The dropout rate in the year 2020-21 at primary level was 4.22 percent, it has come down to 1.04 percent (provisional) in 2021-22,” said Tripura School Education director Chandni Chandran.
Addressing a press conference, she said, the state also saw 1.11 per cent increase in the enrolment rate from pre-primary to Class-XII.
The number of enrolments in 2020-21 was 7,06,003—3,55,215 boys and 3,50,788 girls. In 2021-22, the figure increased to 7,13,862—3,59,315 boys and 3,54,547 girls,she said.
Sharing more details, the School Education director said, “Under Vidyalaya Chalo Abhiyan, 3191 school dropout children were identified during household survey in the current year. Among them, 2313 children (72.48 percent) have already been readmitted while efforts are on to achieve the 100 percent target.”
Addressing the media, she also said, the Department of School Education and the Department of Social Welfare and Social Education jointly initiated ‘Mission Mukul’ with a focus on Early Childhood Care & Education (ECCE) in accordance with the National Education Policy.
The objective of the ECCE is to achieve universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) which is an indispensable pee-requisites for all future schooling and lifelong learning. Under this perspective, Pre-School Education for children in the age group of 3-6 years who are enrolled in Anganwadi Centres of the state needs to be emphasized.
Joint Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Mission Mukul has already been issued.
The important features are- taking into account of topography, communication and other allied factors, 2-3 AWCs would be tied up with nearby government schools which would be treated as Nodal School for the purpose, she said.
The Inspectors of Schools and CDPOs would take up the exercise of mapping the Nodal School with nearby AWCs taking into account that not more than 3 AWCs to be attached with a School, not more than 50 AWC enrolled children (comprising all AWCs) to be attached with Schools less than 3 teachers, maximum distance between School and AWC should be 1.5 kms.
Once in a week the AWC worker will visit the Nodal School where after describing the topic, the entrusted School Teacher will hand over the weekly assignment for enrolled Children of the concerned AWCs along with appraisal on TLM.
The Children enrolled in AWC will accomplish the assignment under the supervision of AWC workers in succeeding days.
On the scheduled day of next week or in case of holiday then on next day, the AWC worker will go to school, apprise the teacher about the accomplished assignment and allied aspects and will collect the assignment for next week.
For capacity building of AWC workers, training programmes would be conducted by the SCERT for ICDS Supervisors in collaboration with the Social Welfare and Social Education Department.
In addition, visits of the students aged 4 years (enrolled in AWCs) will be made in school once in a month to familiarize the students with the school environment.
Model Inclusive Schools to come up in 4 districts –
The School Education department took an initiative to set up four Model Inclusive Schools in four districts, an official said on Tuesday.
Addressing a press conference, School Education director Chandni Chandran said a number of initiatives have been taken for implementing inclusive education in the state and establishment of four Model Inclusive Schools is one of such initiatives.
She said, the four proposed schools are- Kshudiram Basu English Medium School in West Tripura, Kirit Bikram Institution in Gomati District, Kabi Nazrul Vidyabhavan in Khowai District and Padmapur H.S. School in North Tripura district.
In these schools various facilities will be provided to the Children with Special Needs so that they can receive education in an inclusive environment along with other students, the School Education Director said.
As per the plan, 12 Special Educators specialized in different disabilities will be appointed in each school for providing need based support to the children with special needs.
For making friendly infrastructure, these schools will be decorated with yellow fluorescent strips and Ramps with Handrails. CwSN-friendly toilets and Blind path will be provided for easy access to the Children with Special Needs in the schools.
Resource room will be established and equipped with necessary equipment, TLMs for giving remedial support.
The classrooms will be decorated for inclusive set up, Teaching Learning Materials for different disabilities will be provided for classroom support. Seating arrangements inside the classroom will be modified as per need.
Regular sensitization and capacity building programmes on Inclusion will be organized in the respective schools for the teachers. Preference will be made for 25% children with special needs during admission.
The School Education director said, exposure visits have been conducted for the teachers of four proposed Model Schools. The teachers already visited two Inclusive schools- Montfort School in Agartala and Montfort H.S. School in Champaknagar.
(Courtesy Tripura Times)
