Smart new idea to check drop-out gets rolling

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa recently launched a Smart Card Scheme for students of all schools run and aided by the State government. As a pilot project, she presented these cards to students of five higher secondary schools at Thiruchendurai, Aylapettai, Somarasampettai, Ettarai and Inamkulathur in Tiruchy district on Thursday. The information in the smart cards would be integrated through the Education Management Information System (EMIS) as well as with the Health Card issued to the students. In all, 91,54,741 students would be benefitted by the scheme.

The smart card will have all information about the student - name, address of the parents, their income, date of birth and admission to the school, conduct, blood group etc. This will help monitor the migration of the child, possible school drop outs and identifying beneficiaries for welfare schemes.

The scheme to provide special incentive to the students of classes X, XI and XII, and Rs 313.13 cr was deposited with the TN Power Finance Corporation for this purpose. It consists of a cash component plus interest, which would be given to students after they complete the higher secondary course. During the current year, as many as 21,52,986 students would get this incentive and Rs 353.56 crore has been allocated for this purpose. On Thursday, CM commenced the disbursal of the incentive to 4,60,779 students who passed the plus two exams in 2011-12. Last year, the CM announced a new scheme for creating a fixed deposit of `50,000 in the names of those students whose parents die in accidents or sustain disabilities. On Thursday, the CM gave away fixed deposit documents of `3.60 cr to 720 students for the year 2011-12 & 2012-13.