Back to school

As the government's commitment to ensure compulsory education
for all children up to the age of 14 still looks like a Herculean task, a
web-based software, 'back2school' in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri district
makes an effort to get closer to the objective.

The effort is primarily targeted at wiping out school dropouts
up to the age of 14 (and beyond) and ensuring that 'out of school' children
attend school. The aim is to ensure that all 'out of school' children in the
district enroll by the end of 2007, and are later mainstreamed into regular
schools.

Like any other district, Krishnagiri district too faced the
peculiar problem of a high school dropout rate. Out of a total number of
students in the district, which is close to six lakh, there were close to 8,867
'out of school' children.

Ear to the Ground

So far, we have managed to send about 7,000 students back to school. This
has been achieved through a package of assistance to the child and the family,
which enables the parents to get their child enrolled in schools themselves.
Once that happens, each child is tracked up to the 10^th standard with
the help of this web-based software available at www.back2school.in. The
software has been designed to capture simple periodical information about every
child like present status, why the child needs to resume studies, and what a
family needs to get the child enrolled in the school, their requests, etc. The
child is monitored once in three months, after he gets enrolled.

Trained volunteers of the Village Volunteer Force, which is a
30-member team for each Panchayat record this information in a
pre-designed format every quarter. The volunteers are going through the first
batch of training.

If for any reason the children were dropping out, their demands
or needs can be posted online by the monitoring team.

If the volunteer defaults on routine reporting, this will also
be reflected on the dashboard. It is an online service that works 24x7.

The information that is periodically fed into the web-based
software, serves as a source of information for the top officials who, even
without visiting the remotest locations of the district, can track each child's
status.

The objective of this online 'out of School Children'
tracking and monitoring system is to make a practical link between government
schemes and its potential beneficiaries.

While the objective of the online system is noble, its success
clearly lies in constantly staying grounded and in touch with the real
beneficiaries.

Urvashi Kaul 

urvashik@cybermedia.co.in