Chandigarh, July 14 (IANS) The Haryana government will start a two-week campaign from Wednesday to woo school dropouts back to school to increase the literacy rate in the state, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said Tuesday.
“This campaign is part of our drive to educate every individual in Haryana. There are around two lakh children (54 percent of them girls) in the age bracket of 6-14 years in the state who are either school dropouts or have never been to school,” Hooda told reporters here.

The campaign will run from July 15-31.

“We have appealed to all our MLAs (legislators), MPs, village panchayats (councils) and education department officials to meet the residents in their respective areas and appeal to them to send their children to schools. We want every child in Haryana to pass at least 12th standard.”

He said that the recent Haryana budget has also increased the allocation of funds for education.

“In 2004-05, our education budget was Rs.1,600 crore (Rs.16 billion) whereas this year it has increased to Rs.4,800 crore (Rs.48 billion). We are also spending around Rs.600 crore (Rs.6 billion) on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and nearly 2,000 schools have been upgraded in the state in the last four years,” Hooda said.