Nasir Hussain Peerzadah
Education is one of the basic essentials for the holistic development of a nation. It is education which determines the status of nations in the world. In fact education revolutionizes our outlook, behaviour and vision. It leads us to enlightenment and empowerment. The Indian constitution proclaims education as a fundamental right but unfortunately the cherished goals of education have not been crystallized as yet. A large chunk of population is still out of schools. Thus this problem of dropout rates has impeded our way to empowerment and enlightenment. The drop out menace is posing enormous challenges to achieve satisfactory Gross Enrollment Ratio, both at State and National level. It is estimated that at least 1% annual decline is observed in the national enrollment ratio. This is a grave and alarming situation which needs our immediate attention and necessary steps have to be taken to curtail the dropout rates so that access to education at all levels is facilitated.
Challenges/ Issues in JK Context.
So far as the challenges and issues with regard to Dropout phenomenon vis-à-vis JK UT are concerned we have got a diverse nature of challenges and issues confronting to our educational scenario of JK UT. Some of the major challenges and issues are described as:-
1. School related: – In- adequate school facilities like spacious accommodation, unavailability of clean drinking water, proper toilet facilities especially for girl students, lack of proper and routine health check up .
2. The problem of easy access: – The problem of easy access to schools especially for girl children is quite visible in so many schools.
3. Lack of proper and competent human resources: Lack of trained teachers, lack of sufficient human resource, and non availability of subject specific teachers.
4. Defective system of examination: Less emphasis on critical thinking and tinkering in science among young learners.
5. Socio-cultural and Economic causes:-
* Low Scio-Economic status of families of drop outs.
* Less exposure to cultural ethos of modernity.
* Low educational and occupational attainment of parents.
* House hold work engagement of girl students.
* Lack of proper guidance and motivation of drop outs.
* Taking care of younger siblings especially in girl dropout rates.
* Child labour.
* Problems of stagnation and non enrollment.
6. Personal Causes:-
* Poor Academic performance in the class.
* Single parent families.
* Early marriage.
* Wrong Company.
* Family conflicts.
7. Migration of Nomads: – It has been observed that the children of nomadic families are worst sufferers and prone to dropout phenomenon as they have to move periodically from Jammu to Kashmir and vice versa in search of green pastures to feed their cattle and in the process their children do not get adequate opportunities to enroll their students in the schools. This has added to menace of drop out phenomenon in such communities.
8. Prevailing uncertainty: – The UT of J&K has been witnessing Socio- political uncertainty for many decades which has resulted in-frequent closure of educational institutions making students uninterested in academic activities. This too has resulted in the dropouts rates.
9. Lack of Psychological Support: There is no psychological support in schools for vulnerable students .Educational councilors could have been of sufficient help for such students.
10. No Active community mobilization: There is not any active community mobilization to lure the parents of drop outs to readmit their wards back to schools.
As we are beset with new challenges and issues regarding dropout rates, now in order to mitigate the problem we have to devise an efficient and vibrant mechanism to weed out this menace.
Recommendations:
The need of the hour is to have a thorough and scientific study of dropout phenomena and seek the suggestions from all stakeholders to wipe out dropout rates. Thus, in the light of NEP- 2020, following recommendations are made for the said purpose.
* Providing effective and sufficient infrastructure so that students have excess to safe and engaging school education at all levels from pre primary schools to grade 12, providing trained subject specific teachers. There should be provision for conduct of extra / co curricular activities. All the schools should be provided with science/math/language labs, besides well equipped ICT labs. There should be separate toilets for boys and girls. Spacious playgrounds have to be provided to all schools. Regular and vibrant accountability system should be in place. Students should be provided with necessary medical assistance and regular health check up. Safe and practical conveyances, hostels especially for girls. Setting up of alternative and innovative education centers.
* Universal participation: We have to achieve universal participation in schools by carefully tracking students as well as their learning levels. We have to create suitable opportunities to catch up such dropouts. Councilors / and well trained social workers connected to schools must be involved to ensure that school age children are attending and learning in schools.
* Encouraging multiple entries learning to the children of migrant workers.
* Establishments of schools for nomadic communities. (Bakar wal)
* Opening of evening schools for the children involved in labour due to very poor economic conditions.
* Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Programmers offered by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and State Open Schools should be encouraged and strengthened for meeting the learning needs of young people in JK UT.
* Appointment of local teachers for teaching in local language in areas with language barriers.
* Constant reviewing of curriculum to make it competitive, engaging and dynamic to meet all the emerging challenges and make the students confident, self-reliant and skillful,
* Vocational education should be imparted to the students for sustainable life style .
* Strong emphasis should be on digital learning.
* Facilitating students with hassle free scholarships.
* Developing leadership qualities among the teachers working in the department in different capacities.
* Encouraging teachers who work professionally with zeal, dedication and hard work enhancing the quality of education.
CONCLUSION :
It is an established fact that the holistic development of a nation solely depends on the quality of education, it imparts to the citizens. The transformation of societies can be brought through education. Now a days every nation strives for sustainable development. Sustainable development can be achieved only when every citizen has access to education at all levels. The Right to Education is a step to achieve said purpose. As such curtailing the dropout rates becomes inevitable to achieve the cherished goals of education. Thus all the stakeholders have to put their efforts to achieve the target enrollment ratio by minimizing the dropout rates as also envisaged in N.E.P 2020.
(The author is Senior Research officer DIET Ganderbal Kashmir)
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