Desri achieves 100 per cent enrollment of students

Hajipur, Jun 3 (UNI) Desri block in Bihar's Vaishali district has set an example in elementary education after 100 per cent of children in the area had been enrolled in schools with 95 per cent attendance since last few months.

Tiding over all odds of adverse circumstances like poverty, poor infrastructure, unsatisfactory implementation of mid-day meal schemes and other incentives, children of this sleepy hamlet have ventured out to attain intellectual enlightenment.

''Having achieved universal enrolment and high attendance of children in schools, our challenge now would be to retain them in schools'' District Superintendent of Education (DSE) Deepak Kumar Singh said adding that Desri had probably become one of the first blocks in North India to achieve this feat.

The claim of the DSE on achievement in Desri block was validated by a third party assessment carried out in May 2007 by ACE, a Jaipur based research institute.

The ACE evaluation report stated that 99.9 perent of children between 6-14 years in the block are enrolled in schools or in alternative schools with an attendance of 95 percent.

In a joint initiative of Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC) and UNICEF in June 2006 in Vaishali to bring all the children to school and retain them with the help of community participation.

The first step under the project was to identify the out of school children with help of local Vidyalay Shiksha Samiti (VSS) members and ensure their enrolment in schools.

The guiding philosophy of the mission was-- no child should be seen on road, field or even at home during the school hours. To ensure regular attendance of children in shools, list of those not attending their school was prepared and reason was investigated behind it.

Later, the list was handed over to the respective education officer to take steps for encouraging the parents to send their wards to schools while sorting out the difficiluties that were responsible for hiccups over the issue.

Under the guidance of Vaishali Police Superintendent Anupma S Nilakar a torch light procession was taken out to create awareness among the parents to send their wards to the schools.

Besides, the local police station have been very active as they are running free coaching centres for more than 200 children at the premises of the local police station.

From March 2007, massive enrolment drive was launched with the help of police department during which about 13000 out of school children were enrolled in schools.

Besides, daily monitoring of enrolment and attendance by DES and UNICEF besides supervision by district education extender and other officials made the mission successful.

Anjani Kumar Singh, state project director of BEPC, said Bihar was now in a position to achieve universal elementary education as 1.03 lakh teachers had already been appointed while the process for recruiting another one lakh was on.

Ratio of teachers and students would be 1:40 once the process of recruitment was over.

''The chief minister's Integrated School Development Plan for improving infrastructure in schools and the scheme of free uniform to girl students will improve the standard of elementary education in the state'' he added.

Desri is likely to be followed by many more blocks in the state achieving universal education, Mr Singh maintained.

'' The challenge now will be on improving the learning achievement and retention of students especially those in the marginalised communities,''he added.

UNI