Coimbatore City Police help 173 school dropouts rejoin school, plan to step up ‘Police Akka’ project
The Hindu
Coimbatore City Police plans to step up ‘Police Akka’ project to help rejoin 173 school dropout students. Police met 250 children and their parents to encourage regular school attendance. They are also in talks with Social Welfare Department to help differently-abled children rejoin school..
“I study in a government high school in the city. I had earlier taken long leaves as I was ill. I also roamed with boys much older than me. Police would call up my parents often asking me to go to school regularly. Now I rejoined school,” said Vineeth Kumar.
He was among the many students, who had dropped out of school, and their parents who narrated their stories of support from the police at a meeting conducted at the Coimbatore City Police Commissioner Office on Tuesday.
The Coimbatore City Police plan to step up the ‘Police Akka’ project which, so far, has helped 173 dropout students rejoin school. They had dropped out due to familial, financial, social — such as negative influences and stigma against slow learners or differently abled — and health-related reasons. The initiative was launched in October 2022.
Coimbatore City Police Commissioner V. Balakrishnan told reporters, “A total of 1,03,860 boys and 1,05,474 girls study in the 357 schools within the city limits. We collected the details of dropouts from the school administration/District Education Officers. We found that 324 children dropped out this academic year. The child welfare police personnel met 250 children and their parents from June to August 25, 2023. Till now, 90 boys and 83 girls rejoined schools. The parents will be given counselling to send their wards to school regularly. There are 35 more who have not rejoined for several reasons.”
He said the Department was ready to offer support for students to bridge the learning gap for the days they missed school and also expand the initiative by taking steps to abolish child labour.
A migrant worker from Bihar said the police helped her child rejoin school recently and her child attended classes regularly now.
The Commissioner said language was an issue with the migrant workers as learning in Tamil here could be challenging for them. He said, “We are also in talks with the Social Welfare Department to help more differently-abled children rejoin schools. The next meeting will be arranged in three months,” he told reporters.
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