The Bihar Education Department is set to track every child till the undergraduate level to reduce the drop-out rate among school children, reports The Indian Express.

At present 2.5 crore students are studying in about 78,000 schools for Class 1 to Class 12 in Bihar.

Class 5, Class 8, Class 10 and Class 12 were identified as four points by the Education Department where students tend to drop out from school.

As per 2018-19 state government data, 24,03,526 students were enrolled in Class 1. But this number dropped to 15,37,628 in Class 10. At Class 12, this number comes down to 6,31,379 students and the number further dropped to less than 4 lakh students after Class 12.

“We understand that a good number of students are moving towards professional courses after Class 12. But the drop-out rate after Class 5 and Class 8 is very worrisome. As these drop-outs are taking place during changeover of schools because of distance and other factors, we have now asked all district education officers to map secondary schools for Class 5 pass-outs and high school for Class 8 pass-outs. Now, our system will tell parents which nearest middle and high schools their wards would get admitted to,” Principal Secretary of Education Department Sanjay Kumar told The Indian Express.

He said that the department will soon request for a tender to track every child.

“We are getting data from science and technology, medical, pharmacy, agriculture, nursing and other professional and technical courses. Once we have the management innovation system in place, we can track every child and work out our plans accordingly to minimise drop-outs through counselling and reaching out to parents,” Kumar said.

According to the 75th round of National Sample Survey (NSS) conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO), female literacy percentage in Bihar is 60.5%. The state has 79.7 per cent male literacy rate and 70.9 per cent overall literacy rate. Bihar stands at third rank from the bottom among all states.