Centre pulls up Chandigarh for poor enrolment of special kids

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 10

The Union Ministry of Education has pulled up the Chandigarh Education Department on several indicators as mentioned in the Project Approval Board (PAB) minutes for the session 2023-2024.

The report pointed out that of the 3,288 children identified, only five per cent of the out-of-school children have been mainstreamed and only 3,745 children with special needs were enrolled against the total enrolment of 2,66,421, which is only 1.4 percent.

The centre said the UT needs to ensure timely identification of children with special needs and provision of requisite support services to ensure the completion of schooling of all the identified children. The UT may undertake orientation for using the mobile application for screening all relevant stakeholders and ensure all users are verified for undertaking the disability screening activity at the school level.

The report also highlighted that there was a decline in the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) at all levels except for higher secondary, for both boys and girls. This is a cause for concern and the UT needs to take appropriate measures to improve the NER, the report stated.

Additionally, while there has been a relative increase in enrolment at secondary and senior secondary levels, there has been a significant five per cent decrease in enrolment at the elementary level.

Another challenge highlighted in the report is the surplus of teachers at the elementary level. There are still 53 surplus teachers at the elementary level.

According to recent data released by the UT education department, there has been an increase of 4.12% in overall teacher vacancies at the elementary level from the academic year 2022-23 to 2023-24.