Gorakhpur, Mar 9 : The Government in association with State Governments has initiated several programmes to provide rural children access to primary education.

These education-related programmes include stipends, mid-day meals and special attention to girl child education.

Children belonging to backward classes are also getting free uniforms.

The mid-day meal schemes attracting students to the educational institutions.

The scheme is aimed at ensuring 70 to 80 percent enrolments of children in village schools.

“Due to the mid-day meal programme, children who were unwilling to study, have now started coming to school. The number of students in our school has now gone up to nearly 310,” claimed Vinobha Pathak, the headmistress of the Basic Primary School in Akulhiya, Gorakhpur.

These initiatives have boosted the quality of education in schools located in remote and backward villages.

“The various programmes initiated by the government like providing free mid-day meals, stipends, etc to improve the quality of education has definitely benefited the rural areas. The government’s message to the people that education is for all and we should not bar our children from attending schools’ has been conveyed in the right manner,” claimed Ragani, a school teacher.

All these initiatives have encouraged parents to send their children to school.

The Government, on its part, recently constituted a Rural Education Cell and a Department of Educational Surveys and Data Processing to analyse the current scenario in rural education, identify problems and to come up with recommendation to improve the situation overall.

Schemes like the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBVs) for girls belonging to rural and disadvantaged groups have been welcomed wholeheartedly as it aims to realise the constitutional commitment of providing free and compulsory to all children in the age group of six to 14 years. (ANI)