South Corpn plans schools on wheels

The South Corporation is planning to launch mobile schools for delivering doorstep education to underprivileged street children engaged in petty jobs for contributing to their families’ income.

The corporation is also planning to depute by August 7 about 40 counsellors to help primary school students who have fallen prey to substance abuse.

The corporation’s education committee chairman Ashish Sood said the scheme will fulfil the objectives of the Right to Education law by taking teachers to the doorstep of those children who cannot go to formal schools.

The modalities for the mobile school scheme are still being worked out and a three-year target has been set to enrol all street children.

“Students of the mobile schools would get a proper school-leaving certificate and would be eligible to apply in any institution of higher education,” said Sood.
The mobile schools will gradually be integrated with other education schemes for underprivileged students.

Neev project

The scheme may also use data collected by the civic agency under the corporation’s Neev project to identify children who were not attending school.

Under the Neev project, the SDMC enrolled 12,050 children for free education at primary schools. Admissions for 70 children were made through the helpline launched by the corporation last month.

If needed, the mobile schools will be stationed near the homes of the students recently identified under Neev.

The Neev project’s door-to-door surveys involved 4,000 teachers, apart from volunteers from NGOs.

The two-week campaign which started on June 14 enrolled 6,932 girls, 1,814 more than the boys enrolled.

Around 6,000 children, identified under Neev, have already started going to the corporation schools.

However, in some schools, the infrastructure is not up to the mark, Sood admitted.
“Serious action would be taken against engineers for delay in repair and maintenance,” he said.