Sirsa aims to arrest fall in school enrolment

Anil Kakkar

Sirsa, May 21

The Education Department has been making efforts to increase enrolment in government schools. However, despite their efforts, the number of students at these schools continues to fall. Following this, the District Elementary Education Department has also become proactive. District Elementary Education Officer Buta Ram held a meeting with the heads of 43 schools in the district that had less than 20 students enrolled on Monday. The heads were given a deadline of May 31 to increase enrolment. Schools with fewer than 20 students must have more than 25 students on their rolls and those with exactly 20 must achieve the target of 35.

Parents prefer Pvt schools to govt

Unfortunately, the government is unable to match the promises it makes of providing better facilities at its schools. By comparison, the facilities are much better in private schools of the district. — Rajesh Solanki, Resident

The Directorate of Elementary Education also called a meeting last week with the heads of schools that had less than 20 students enrolled to seek explanations.

In comparison to the previous academic year, there have been 6,616 fewer admissions in classes from Balvatika to Class V this session. Last year, 55,390 students were enrolled in primary government schools in the district, but this year only 48,774 have enrolled so far.

Shockingly, the primary school in Dhani Maniram Mund, Rania Block, has no students at all.

There are 832 government schools as against 310 private ones in the district.

There are several reasons behind the reduction in enrolment, the primary one being that there is a significant migration from government to private schools.

“Parents aspire for better education for their children,” said Rajesh Solanki, a resident of Sirsa. “Unfortunately, the government is unable to match the promises it makes of providing better facilities at its schools. In comparison, the facilities are much better in private schools in the district.”

Another reason is that many of the parents, to boost the economic condition of the family, prefer to terminate the education of the children and put them to work.

“The children in the government schools are generally from relatively poor backgrounds, so their parents take them out of school, often after classes X or XII,” Solanki added. “That’s another significant reason for the fall in the number of students in government schools.”