Maharashtra government working on app to bring dropouts back to school: Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad

The department has stepped up efforts to bring the students back considering that schools will be reopened in the near future

With the coronavirus outbreak forcing thousands of students to discontinue their studies across Maharashtra, the state government plans to launch a mobile application to track such dropouts. The app is a part of the state's plan to resolve the ‘out-of-school' challenge and bring the students back to the education fold, said education minister Varsha Gaikwad on Thursday.

Amid the new normal of online schooling, alarming concerns are being raised over students dropping out of the education system owing to the lack of facilities to ensure digital learning. While access to smart devices and the internet has been a major factor, financial crunch faced by parents with lost jobs and migration for survival have been other stumbling blocks.

Varsha Gaikwad, education minister

"Bringing these children back to schools is going to be an important task for us post COVID. The department has already started working on a special plan to ensure that these children are back in the flow of education as soon as possible, especially now that schools are going to be re-opened in the near future," said Gaikwad.
The minister said technology will be the backbone of the plan. "Work is on to develop a mobile application which will help track and identify ‘out-of-school' students.

The plan is that not only a student who is out of school or his or her parents but also any individual should be able to upload the data on this app if any child is found dropped out of school. Local ‘Balrakshaks' will be notified about such a student who can then visit the locality and begin the process of bringing that child back to the regular education flow," she said.

Gaikwad said her department will soon release the final plan.