The secondary education wing of the district education department in Malda has launched an extensive drive to reduce the number of school dropouts and bring children who dropped out back to school.

The officials are also identifying children who are reluctant to get enrolled
in school.

Every year, the state government observes Students’ Week from January 1 to 8.

On this occasion this year, officials of the department have taken the task of reaching out to children and their guardians across the district.

“We have chalked out a road map to reach our goal in different ways. We hope there will be effective results. We are discouraging the trend to discontinue studies and want to bring back dropouts to schools. We also want to get children reluctant to study enrolled in schools,” said Banibrata Das, the district inspector of schools (secondary)
of Malda.

Sources said a team from the department is organising camps for days together at red-light areas of the district where the number of dropouts is alarmingly high.

Dwellers of red-light areas, particularly mothers, have also been sensitised about the positives of sending their wards to schools.

“We are also explaining all the schemes of the state government which would largely benefit the student and her/his family in different ways,” said an official.

Another team is visiting the islets of the district. On December 31, they reached Hamidpur islet in Kaliachak-II block and held meetings with the guardians and prospective students of the area.

Heads of secondary schools and madrasahs accompanied the team and spent the entire day persuading guardians to send their children to schools from the first day of the academic year.

Although January 1 is a state holiday, Das and other officials in his department were busy organising awareness drives.

In Malda town, singers who perform gambhira (a traditional folk song), were engaged
to aware people so they sent their students to schools.

A source in the department said in the 2022-23 academic year, around 2,000 students stayed away from the schools and eventually stopped studying. Similar was the situation in 2021-22.

“Schools from where such dropout cases were reported were identified and a section of students did eventually return to schools. But another section stayed away. This time, we have taken a broader approach to reduce dropout rates,” said the source.