According to the DEO, the dropout rate is 6 percent among school students in the district, which is considered to be the highest in the country. “As majority of the school age children belonging to poor families work as child labourers in local hotels and transport services, we have problem keeping them in the school,” said assistant District Education Officer Padamraj Bhatta.

Bhatta said that the DEO intends to focus on raising awareness about the value of education and increasing enrolment during the first phase of the campaign launched last week  while conducting door-to-door campaigns by mobilising school going children for motivation purpose in the second phase.

Stating that they have been conducting various programmes to increase the net enrolment rate in the district, he admitted that the district education authorities have failed to get the children belonging to extremely poor households to get enrolled in schools, or if they are already there, not to drop out.

District Education Officer Bhim Bahadur Saud said they have trouble enrolling children belonging to freed Kamaiyas (indentured girl child labourers), freed Haliyas (bonded tillers) who constantly migrate from one place to other.

Stating that the government has drastically failed to enrol children from targeted marginalised communities in schools despite running similar campaigns for many years, Bhawaraj Regmi of the civil society said that only enrolment campaigns were not enough and that the district education authorities should also conduct various sustenance programmes to help remove their compulsion to migrate constantly. “The only way to succeed is to introduce a programme addressing all their needs,” Regmi said.

The DEO, Kanchanpur had earlier intended to declare the district fully literate by 2014.

However, due to inefficiency of the programmes conducted on an annual basis, it was forced to postpone the declaration.