School dropouts pose vax hurdle to Kalyana Karnataka

With the Union government issuing guidelines to inoculate adolescents aged between 15 and 18 years against Covid-19 from January 3, the authorities in Kalyana Karnataka have a huge task on hand.

Identifying school dropouts (above 15 years) for administering the vaccine might become a challenge for both the education and health department, as several children migrate to Bengaluru, Pune, Mumbai and other cities in search of livelihood.

Despite the official claim that school dropouts are being brought to the mainstream, the region has a sizeable number of such students.

Sakreppa Gouda, Kalaburagi Public Instruction Commissionerate's deputy director (planning), said the department and schools will have details of students aged up to 15 years. Dropouts can be identified in their villages. "If they have migrated to other places along with their parents for livelihood, we can ask their neighbourhood to inform us whenever they visit the village for festivals or other reasons," he said.

With the compulsory education norm from first standard to ninth standard, the department is engaged in identifying school dropouts and bringing them to the mainstream. In 2020-21, the department identified a total of 5,539 school dropouts in six districts falling under the region. Of them, 4,136 children have been rehabilitated, he explained. In 2019-20, as many as 1,596 children were brought to the mainstream out of the 2,943 identified.

"As we have the details of the children, those above 15 years can be identified even if they dropped out of schools, and can be brought to the vaccine centre," Gouda said.

Kalaburagi division's Public Instruction Commissioner Nalini Atul told DH that the district administration, in consultation with the respective deputy directors of public instruction, will take a call on administering the vaccine to eligible children.

Another officer, who preferred anonymity, said it is difficult to identify children who dropped out of pre-university as most of them would have migrated to cities. They might receive the vaccine at their workplace.

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