SHILLONG: The number of dropouts in lower and upper primary schools and at the secondary level has come down in 2014-15 from 2012-13, said Social Education and Literacy Minister Deborah Marak on Wednesday.
Replying to a cut motion moved by UDP MLA Jemino Mawthoh in the Assembly, Marak said dropout rate in lower primary schools reduced from 13.17 per cent in 2012-13 to 10.34 per cent in 2014-15.
In upper primary, it came down to 6.82 per cent in 2014-15 from 14.98 per cent in 2012-13. At the secondary level, the dropout rate reduced from 35.94 per cent to 24.74 per cent during the same period.
The minister said the Department, through several initiatives under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, has been able to plug the loopholes such as improvement of infrastructure, clearing the backlog of untrained teachers, setting up of block/cluster and village-level committees for creating mass awareness, monitoring and academic support, introduction of computer-aided learning and provision of incentives, like textbooks and exercise books. Enumerating the achievements of the Department, Marak said 9,480 dropout children were enrolled in special training schools with an expenditure of Rs 305.25 lakh for provision of learning materials and honorarium to teachers. Also, 6,14,525 children were given textbooks at Rs 150 per child at the LP level and Rs 250 per child at the UP level amounting to Rs. 1,113.33 lakh.
In addition, 3,63,754 children were provided funds at the rate of Rs 400 per child for provision of school uniforms amounting to Rs 1,455.02 lakh and 6,400 in-service teachers were trained during the year with an expenditure of Rs 57.60 lakh.
The minister asserted that 7,703 schools were provided with maintenance grant amounting to Rs 467.75 lakh during the year, and 85,165 children with special needs were provided support during the year at Rs 3,000 per child with total amount of Rs 255.48 lakh.
Among other measures are training of 36,438 community members in Right to Education with an expenditure of Rs 109.36 1akhs, infrastructure development in new schools and funds to dilapidated schools.
Besides, 300 new elementary schools have been added between 2012-13 and 2014-15 and the pupil-teacher ratio is good at all levels. In 2014-15, there was reduction in the pupil-teacher ratio in secondary schools from 13.71 per cent in 2012-13 to 12.26 per cent in 2014-15.
