A survey conducted by Panchayat and Mangaluru City Corporation have found 567 students aged between seven and 18 years of school breaking out in the Dakshina Kannada district in the academic year 20-21.
This contrasts with a similar survey conducted by Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (formerly Sarva Shikshana Abhiyana) in 2019-20, who found DK only had 40 dropouts.
The Public Instruction Department has managed to bring 157 children back to the classroom and work to get 410 children left back to the mainstream school.
Panceshayats and Zilla also plan to monitor the situation and check data for each duplication.
The Rural Department and the Department of Panchayat Raj (RDPR) has directed Gram Panchayats and the municipality to identify children who have come out of school.
Manjula KL, the Deputy Project Coordinator, Samagra Shikshana Karnataka, DK, said that during the survey of their several months, they studied, “not many dropouts” in the age group of six to 14 years.
“Our focus is in children aged between 15-16 years, which makes large numbers,” he said.
Manjula said the financial crisis was due to pandemic, closing the length of school, terminal disease, migration and others were reasons for dropping out of school.
Some students at SSLC and lower classes from North Karnataka who study in DK have gone to their hometown.
“They have joined schools in their home town but the student achievement tracking system (SATS) still shows that they are registered with DK.
We have sorted duplication like that,” said Manjula.
The Labor Department has also provided support to bring school drop back to the mainstream.
“We have shared detailed surveys with the Ministry of Manpower to ensure they are not forced into child labor.
We need to track them and bring them back to school,” said Manjula.
Kumar, CEO, Zilla Panchayat, DK, said: “We also tried to gather information about why these children left school.”