Govt reaches out to schools,dispatches 60 census kits

Ever since the census kit — specially designed with customised lessons on the applications of census for middle school students across the country — arrived from the Home ministry,teachers at the school have been trying to incorporate the country’s biggest exercise into their lectures to help the government carry out its task more efficiently.

In each district,60 schools have been chosen randomly from a list of government,aided and private schools,and the kit — called ‘Census and You’ — has been dispatched to the principals.

For Class-VI students,census will be discussed in their language classes,and teachers have been asked to give them essays to write on the subject as per the census kit. Class VII students will learn about census applications in their Maths classes,where they would discuss the tools and equations the Census Commission uses to get their numbers right. In Class VIII,the children will be familiarised with the census and its impact through public policy discussions and how the government uses the data to draft laws and understand social issues in the country.

Varsha Joshi,Census Commissioner for Delhi,kicked off the exercise on Friday with a visit to DPS,RK Puram. Dr C Chandramouli,Registrar General and Census Commissioner,first experimented with the outreach effort in schools in Tamil Nadu during the 2001 census,when he was the state’s census commissioner.

The kit consists of lessons in maths,social science and language,and a census wheel with bar graphs for different segments of the population,along with a pack of cards with census-related questions .It was developed by Joshi and Chandramouli,among others.

“We used NCERT lessons to design the kit. In the last census,a few states undertook such outreach efforts. This time,it is a nationwide programme,” Joshi said. “The students will go home and talk about it,welcome the enumerators at home and help them with the job.”

At the school,the students presented a skit on the issue. Through student outreach,the census officials hope families will understand more about the need for a census.

Anway Tewari,another student,said they now understand the impact of the census on their lives. “”We will try and make their job easy,” he said.

“That’s the idea. They will go home and talk about it,” Joshi said.

Towards the end of the school event,she announced that Census 2011 has a page on Facebook,which was created this week,and already has 200 members.

The students were also enjoying being part of the government’s exercise. Many hands went up when questions on the census were asked. “Which state has the smallest sex ratio in India?” In the packed auditorium,many voices were heard. They were all competing for a certificate from the Home ministry,an incentive which is a part of the project.

Joshi’s purpose was served. She headed to a government school in Sadiq Nagar for a similar event.

Census 2011 will begin on February 9.

Govt to distribute sanitary pads for free