SRIKAKULAM: The smart pulse survey, the ambitious project was undertaken by the government last year to digitise the socio-economic data of all households, appears to have been away from the ground reality in Srikakulam district when it comes to the out-of-the-school children.
The survey reports suggest that as many as 38,000 students were found out of the school, but the district officials have their own doubts in the figures.
To assess the ground reality, the district administration undertook another field survey which was launched on July 23. The details of the out-of-the-school children are not available on the official website of the education department ‘childinfo’.
The education officials say that the data mentioned in the smart pulse survey report are not accurate.
“The children for whom the Aadhaar seeding is yet to be done were counted as the out-of-school children in the pulse survey. The fact is a huge number of migrants from the district came back to take part in the enumeration fearing seizure of their social security benefits and their children were registered as either dropouts or those who never went to school,” says an education official on the condition of anonymity.
On July 23, another survey Vidyarthi Ganana was launched to find the ground reality, says Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) project director Trinath Rao.
Already, 651 personnel from the SSA, besides the sectorial authorities have been deployed for the enumeration drive launched in all the 38 mandals in the district to cross-check the data, he said.
However in the last one week, he says, the survey teams have found that majority of around 15,000 children who were included in the out-of-the school category in pulse survey have been enrolled in schools.