Out of city, now out of school; cruel tale of kids in resettlement colony

Ezhil Nagar children cite lack of govt documents for admission, seat shortage in nearby schools

- NIRUPAMA VISWANATHAN @ Chennai

AT 11am on a weekday, several school-going-age children were strolling on the corridors and streets of Ezhil Nagar, which is one of Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board's largest resettlement sites with 8,048 economically-backward families resettled from core city in 2013.

While the infrastructure issues bedeviling the settlement have been widely reported, the number of out-of-school students here indicates a deeper malaise.

TNIE visited the site after a recent survey by the Information and Resource Centre for Deprived Urban Communities found 89 students to be out of school here, some of them for three years. Of this, 51 children were girls and 48 of them were between the ages of 5 and 14.

TNIE found at least seven out-of-school children within a span of a few blocks. Most children said their school was too far. Since they would miss school frequently due to the long distance, they eventually stop going to schools. With their parents themselves travelling long distances, mostly to the northern parts of the city for work, they are unable to monitor their children.