Just 187 out-of-school children found in Goa

PANAJI: Following years of efforts, only 187 out-of-school children were detected in Goa this year, who are currently being provided training so they can be mainstreamed into the regular schooling system. The number of out-of-school children was between 800 to over a 1,000 until six years ago, mainly the children of migrant workers who come to Goa in search of daily wage jobs.
The state government has received Rs 10 lakh as funds from the Union human resource development ministry at Rs 5,000 per student during the academic year 2019-20 to mainstream out-of-school children.The children are provided with nine months of age appropriate classes so they can join a school at the end of the training period.
NGOs are engaged under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan to identify out-of-school children between the ages of 6 and 14 years and train them.
The Union human resource development ministry has set a target for Goa to ensure that no out of school children are in the state by 2019-20. But it is a difficult task in Goa.
Last year an analysis of the background of out-of-school children in Goa had shown that most them belong to migrant workers from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha and Bihar
During the academic year 2016-17, of the 463 out-of-school children, only 51 were mainstreamed.
A large number of migrant families are part of a floating population that move in and out of Goa depending on the availability of work. This leads to difficulties in bringing the children into the mainstream schooling system.
However, the number of out-of-school children found in Goa has dropped significantly over the years following concentrated efforts.
In 2013, for instance, 1,134 such children were identified in Goa.