The Malda district administration has decided to collate data on school dropouts at the grassroots in a bid to arrive at solutions to bring students back to education.

Officials will, for the first time, use a mobile app called “children registrar app” to collect data for the purpose. The app has been designed by the state-level Sarva Siksha Mission.

Apart from taking note of the dropouts, officials will through the app collect other information like whether the children are working as migrant labourers or have been married off.

“The idea is to get detailed information so that a plan can be worked out to get dropouts back to school after analysing the reasons for their leaving school,” said a source.

The survey using the mobile app will start after Durga Puja vacation and the report will be shared with the state education department.

On Tuesday, Malda education officer Soumyo Ghosh held meeting for district inspectors of schools and sub-inspectors on ways to collect data and use the information to improve school attendance.

“It is a fact that some schoolboys migrate to other states for work, leaving their studies. Unfortunate but true,” said Hariswami Das, headmaster, Sovanagar High School in Malda’s Englishbazar.

Sources in the district education department said instances of dropouts increased after the Covid pandemic.

Soumyo Ghosh, district education officer and the district project officer of Sarva Siksha Mission, said: “According to the ruling of the Supreme Court, a boy or a girl will be regarded as a school dropout

if he or she abstains from attending classes for 30 consecutive days without proper reason.”

There are 1,941 primary schools under 31 circles in Malda district, nearly 550 high and higher secondary schools and over 80 madrasas.