Mira Bhayander: Teachers in action mode to boost new admissions in MBMC schools

Education department officials have rolled-up their sleeves to increase enrolments in the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC)-run schools in the twin-city. For this the education department has roped in teachers and volunteers attached to Samagra Shiksha mission to conduct an intensive door-to-door survey to identify out-of-school children and bring them into the formal education system.

The 15-day outreach programme will be conducted from 5th to 20th July under the state government’s “Mission Zero Dropout” campaign aimed at finding dropouts and admitting them to the nearest municipal school. The campaign will cover railway stations, bus stands, markets, slum clusters, construction sites, to find drop-outs and out-of-school children and bring them into the formal education system. Fearing a rise in students dropping out, due to various issues which cropped up during the two years of pandemic induced shutdown of schools, MBMC’s education department had conducted a similar survey in June which witnessed a decent jump in enrolments for the new academic session.

With more than 1000 new enrolments, the total number of school students has crossed the 8,000 mark. At present, there are 36 municipal schools which impart education in Marathi, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati and semi-English mode up to students who mostly come from a poor economic background.

Unlike Uniforms, Books on Time:

Taking a lesson from its blunder of delay in distributing uniforms, shoes and school bags to municipal school students, the civic administration was quick to take a decision which ensured that around 1,000 students got their textbooks on time. The MBMC had placed its order for textbooks with Balbharti- the state’s school publication bureau, in accordance with the earlier strength of 7,248 students. However, the increase in new admissions led to shortage. MBMC chief- Dilip Dhole immediately took a decision and purchased the books on an urgent basis from Balbharti by availing a 30 % discount.