New Delhi: The HRD ministry asked Tuesday states and Union Territories to ensure that the names of children of migrant workers who returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic are not struck off their school rolls. Issuing a set of guidelines, the HRD Ministry also directed the states to prepare a database of children who have left the local area for their homes in other states or other parts of the same state. Such children should be noted in the database as ‘migrated’ or ‘temporarily unavailable’, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) said.
“Such a database may be prepared by each school by personally contacting parents or guardians of all children studying in their school, through phone, WhatsApp, neighbours or peer groups. Their tentative place of stay during this period may also be noted. Such children, who have left, may be shown separately in enrolment as temporarily unavailable or migrated,” the ministry said in a statement.
“While all care must be taken to ensure that their names are not struck off the rolls (as the possibility of their return anytime is always there), their numbers may be reported class-wise to the Directorate of Education to compensate for any input costs to be incurred by the school such as mid-day meals, distribution of textbooks and uniforms if not already completed,” the ministry added.
It also suggested that the state governments may direct all schools to give admission to any child who recently returned to village without asking for any other documents, except for some identity proof.
“They should not ask for transfer certificates or proof of class attended earlier. The information provided by the child’s parents may be assumed to be correct and taken as such for giving admission to the child in the relevant class in his or her neighbourhood government or government-aided school,” the statement said.
“Children who are thus admitted may be facilitated to continue their learning by providing remedial learning support through the school and allowed to adjust to the new school environment. They may be provided books from the book banks or libraries maintained by the schools. Peer learning may also be encouraged for such children. They may also be provided mid-day meals along with the other children of their school,” the ministry added.
