CHENNAI: Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has identified 7,302 children who are currently out of school within the city and has launched a coordinated field-level effort to bring them back into the education system by August 31.

Corporation Commissioner, Dr G.S. Sameeran, inaugurated a consultation meeting with field-level officials at the Ripon Buildings on Thursday to discuss coordination and implementation of measures for identifying out-of-school children, counselling them and ensuring their re-enrolment and continued attendance.

The initiative is being coordinated by the Corporation’s Gender and Policy Lab (GPL), education department, community development division and socio-economic development division.

Addressing the meeting, Dr. Sameeran said the issue of out-of-schoolchildren should be handled on a priority basis and that every identified child should be brought back into the education system.

He stressed that the exercise should not stop with identifying children, but also focus on understanding why they had dropped out, engaging with their families, facilitating their re-admission and ensuring that they continued attending school and pursuing their education.

As part of the implementation plan, social coordinators will identify children through field surveys, establish contact with their families, provide counselling, coordinate with schools and assist children in re-joining school. They will also undertake follow-up action to ensure that the children remain in the education system.

The Corporation has set Aug. 31 as the target date for re-enrolling the identified out-of-school children. Officials and field teams will work together to achieve the target through systematic family outreach, counselling and school-level support.

As many as 96 social coordinators from the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) were trained at Thursday’s meeting to undertake field-level follow-up and assist in the re-enrolment process.

The initiative is based on the principle that no child should be left behind and seeks to strengthen coordination between various civic departments and field workers to ensure that children not attending school are brought back into formal education.

Joint commissioner (education) K. Karpagam, principal education officer Kabir, Corporation education officer J. Vasanthi, assistant education officers, GPL team head Dr. Legis, senior officials of the community development and socio-economic development divisions, NULM assistant project officers and senior community coordinators of the Corporation and NULM participated in the meeting.


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