25,681 students in Maharashtra lost their parents to Covid-19 pandemic: Union Govt

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The Union Ministry of Education on Monday said that 25681 students in Maharashtra lost their parents during the Covid 19 pandemic till August 2021.

The Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Annpurna Devi, in a written response in the Lok Sabha said that out of the 25681 students, 13025 students are boys and 12656 are girls.

In Mumbai, the minister said, 2822 students lost their parents to the pandemic among whom 1405 were boys and 1417 were girls. In Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Latur, Amravati, Nagpur, Pune, and Nashik 1427, 6833, 453, 2454, 4447, 5776, 1469, students respectively lost their parents to the pandemic.

Devi was responding to a question listed by Member of Parliament from Maharashtra's Osmanabad constituency, Omprakash Bhupalsingh alias Pavan. Pavan had further asked whether the government has formulated any scheme to provide free education to these students under the Right to Education Act.

In the written reply, the Minister of Education said during the challenging circumstances of Covid 19 pandemic, the Ministry of Education made efforts to continue the education of the students through multiple alternative ways, while ensuring safety and wellbeing of the students.

"Samagra Shiksha has been aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in order to ensure inclusive and equitable, quality and holistic school education. The Samagra Shiksha scheme for school education provides financial assistance for implementation of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which provides every child of the age of 6-14 years, the right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till the completion of his or her elementary education.

"The Department of School Education and Literacy vide letter dated 4th May, 2021 had shared a comprehensive Covid Action plan with States/UTs and other stakeholders for mitigating the loss of learning. This Department had also developed an online module for compiling the data of Out of School Children (OOSC) identified by each State/UT and their mapping with Special Training Centres (STC) on the PRABANDH Portal (https://samagrashiksha.in). The portal requires the concerned State/UT to validate the child wise information of the identified OOSC and STC uploaded by the concerned Block Resource Centre of the State for monitoring the progress of mainstreaming of OOSC. Also, Bridge Course Modules were developed for bridging the learning gaps of Out of School Children studying in Special Training Centres (STC) under the provision of RTE Act, 2009.

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"Furthermore, Hon'ble Prime Minister launched PM CARES for children scheme on 29^th May 2021 which aims to support children who have lost both the parents or legal guardian or adoptive parents or surviving parent to COVID-19 pandemic. The detailed guidelines are available in the public domain at https://pmcaresforchildren.in/public/webdesign/images/guidelines.pdf. State/UTs have been directed that all the benefits and entitlements of Samagra Shiksha as per existing norms may be provided to children registered for ‘PM CARES for children scheme' and admitted in schools covered under Samagra Shiksha."

The ministry in its response noted that as per government notification of January 25, 2023, Covid affected child (whose parents either both or single died due to covid infection caused in between 1st April 2020 to 31st March 2022) is included in the rule of the Maharashtra Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Manner of admission of Minimum 25% children in Class-I or Pre-school at the entry level for the children belonging to disadvantaged group and weaker section) Rule, 2013.