Proceedings of the Meeting on Enrollment Drive of Children in Schools with Government Functionaries and INGOs / Local NGOs

Organized by Save the Children

Date: 29-06-2005
Time: 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Venue: Town Hall, Bharathi Road,
Manjakuppam, Cuddalore-607 001.

Agenda for the Meeting:

· Welcome and Self-Introduction

· Sharing of Experiences and current scenario on Children Enrollment

- Obstacles/Issues came across during the enrollment
- Challenges Faced and Strategies adopted

· Sharing of education services by the District Education Functionaries

· Identification of Strategy to be adopted for coordination among the stakeholders

· Working on Action-Plan towards ensuring that all Children are enrolled in School.

· Follow-up Meeting

· Summation

Background

The tendency of children being dropped from School due to dislocation and other reasons has been an issue of concern as children has to be given due consideration to see that all the children are enrolled and at the same time have the right to schooling. Simultaneously the current need that is being felt is to restart the child focused coordination to strengthen the response and delivery system across various concerned agencies and the District Administration. At this juncture it was felt that there is a need for those who are involved towards Child Protection and Child Welfare to meet, reflect, address and evolve strategies to work collectively to ensure that every child enrolled in school and those dropped out of school in the aftermath of Tsunami again are back to school.

Proceedings of the Meeting:

Louis Joseph, Progamme Manager, Save the Children welcomed the participants to the meeting. He briefed about the need to meet as a group and work collectively with the District Administration to ensure 100% children enrollment in Cuddalore District. It was also mentioned that the participants could chalk down the obstacles faced at the time of enrollment, so that the officials from the district administration can guide us as well clarify the doubts.

This was followed by the Self-introduction by the participants. Thirty-Three participants attended the meeting with representatives from the INGOs, NGOs and the District Education Department.

Sharing of Experiences:

The participants shared their experiences on the success and obstacles faced by the them at the time of enrolling the children in the schools. They also briefed on the activities of their organization in a nutshell. All the issues were listed one-by-one and agreed upon a collective counsenses, which is as follows:

* Both the Government/Aided Schools demand for school fees.
* The private schools insist on collection of fees to bear their management costs and Salaries to the staff.
* Few Children could not attend school though they are interested because they have to lead the family after the loss of their parents.
* Dropout rate high due to the loss of single parent to supplement the family income.
* Children getting dropped from Secondary Education due to lack of Mobility/Transportation facility to attend far-of-schools.
* Few participants also expressed issues on College Education.

The participants also aired their view that the School authority at the Village level present false statistical data on 100% school enrollment.

To this, Mr. A. Vincent, Deputy Inspector of Schools stated that this is because the teachers have to show the figure to avoid management issue of the school. He fully agreed that there is no 100% attendance and also conscious about it. It was also mentioned that the Long Absentees List that is kept in every school has to be referred to identify the actual number of dropouts. Few participants also raised their opinion that the school teachers should play a vital role in helping the NGO staff to motivate the child’s family and the children to attend school.

The District administration personnel mentioned that the Child Enrollment would take place till 31st July 2005. He put his commitment that the district administration will support all the persons in case they come across any obstacles/issues either from the School authorities. He also gave his communication address and phone number for immediate information. He asked the participants to identify children and prepare a list of all who are not enrolled due to fees problem and give to him before 15th July 2005 to make sure that all of them are enrolled. He also mentioned that there is no necessity of producing proof of identification to get enrolled in the present stature. He assured that he would take immediate action to see that the children are enrolled.

For Information: Address/Phone of Mr. Vincent for further communication.

Mr. A. Vincent,
Dep. Inspector of Schools,
DEO’s Office,
Cuddalore.
Mobile: 94437-87718

He further explained the functioning of Cluster Resource Centres (CRC) in the Cuddalore District, to promote quality education at the block level. The participants requested to give the details of the CRC’s for which he assured the it will be given in a day’s time. He will give the details of CRC’s pertaining to three blocks to Save the Children to circulate among the participants.

Finally, the participants framed few issues that have to be given concern and priority by the Government Functionaries in-line with the local stakeholders. The points are as follows:

* For Government schools/Aided schools and colleges communication from DEO to the Schools required for exemption of fees. This is because the school authorities demand the parents or the NGO staff to get authentic information about the Government Order.
* Unified presentation of information on the Sarva Siksha Abhayan (SSA) and other exemptions suggested to the DEO functionaries.
* Survey on Vulnerable children has to be conducted to explore the GAPS.

After the tea session the participants tried to explore ways of collective cooperation and coordination between the members to achieve 100% enrollment in cuddalore. After a brief discussion, it was decided that an Enrollment Task Force has to be setup to further strengthen the process of Enrollment Drive. The participants decided among themselves and selected one member from their organization to initiate the process. Henceforth, the Enrollment Task Force evolved with the following members depicted in the table.

S.No
Name of the MemberOrganization from
Contact Number
1. Satya, BLESS (0414 - 227254)
2.Rajeshwari,ASEEFA(04144-231485)
3.Damayanteran,OFFER(9844346142)
4.Deivanesan,LEAD (294392)
5.R. Gowri Priya,MNTN(9842610980)
6.Brinda,CARD(960325826)
7.Joseph,World Vision(04142-225474)
8.Nanda Kumar,CCF(9367632378)
9.Ranganathan,Save the Children(044-55713427)
10.Kumar,TNTDS(9443815234)


The members of the Enrollment Task Force decided to meet again with the following information from their respective organizations for strategic planning.

* Dropout children list of their Project areas.
* School list that demand Collection of Fees for enrollment.

World Vision offered to organize the next meeting in their office premises on
12th July 2005 at 10:30AM at World Vision, Cuddalore office.

The meeting ended with a commitment to meet again on 12th July 2005

minutes by " savethechildren" team