Mysuru: District education authorities have uncovered incidents of child marriages in the district during a latest survey of school dropouts. Officials are collating data and are expected to disclose it next week.
Last year, 34 school-going girls were married off by their parents with the majority of the cases reported from Heggadadevana Kote taluk. An official claimed that cases of child marriage are lesser this time.
A total of 5,512 students had dropped out of school and of them, 3,618 were brought back. Help was taken from non-governmental organizations to convincing parents to send their children back to school. However, education department authorities are grappling to bring rest of the dropouts back to school. The year recorded the marriage of 34 minor girls.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan project coordinator S Chandra Patil said that the survey is in its last leg. The report will be submitted shortly. The survey is conducted at three levels.
In the first level, education department officers carried out the survey at schools. Hotels, industrials areas, hospitals, bus stands and railway stations were checked to find out whether minors are employed there.
With assistance from NGOs, information on child marriage and child labour was collected from each taluk, the project coordinator said. Mysuru district has some 3,279 school, including 1,920 government higher primary and 236 government high schools.
