Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Education to support poor students who have dropped out of school.
"A total of 130,000 students did not return to school this year," Cooperatives Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari said on Sunday on the sideline of the signing ceremony.
“The ministry retained these students’ contact information and found the reasons leading to their dropping out. In doing so, we are now better equipped to fight this phenomenon,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
Education Minister Mohammad Bat’haei said the government has drafted a national plan to tackle educational deprivation in all provinces and reduce education disparity in the four provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan, West Azarbaijan, Hormozgan and Kerman.
“The Education Ministry is ready to talk to the parents of dropouts and pave the way for their return to school,” he said.
Mohammad Meydari, deputy cooperatives minister, who was also present at the Sunday ceremony, said the government would increase subsidies to the poor, disadvantaged schoolchildren who have dropped out.
“Yet, the move should not lead to the belated enrollment of students in future,” he said.
“The ministry is planning to allocate a support package worth 2 million rials ($17) for each of them.”
Meydari noted that over 142,000 children of ages six to 13 and 98,840 kids of ages six to 11 are not attending school for various reasons, including intellectual and physical disability, poverty, migration, premature death in family, poor access to school, domestic problems and parents’ negligence.
