With a view to checking the high drop out rate due to internal displacement caused by the conflict and some other reasons, the Nepali Department of Education will issue identity cards to students studying in gov't schools from next year, a leading English newspaper, The Himalayan Times daily reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, students in government schools will be identified by a number starting with the district number issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Students who are forced to leave school in the middle of an academic session and those who do not have certificates while fleeing in a hurry due to various reasons can pursue education after submitting their ID card number in any of the government schools, the report said.

"The program has been designed in such a way that the students willing to pursue studies in public schools anywhere in the country can do so easily," the department director Mahashram Sharma was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

He said that with the implementation of the program, the exact number of children out of schools will be known.

Data collected last year have already been entered in the central database system and the rest will be done this year along with the results of a household survey the department is conducting, he said.

Source: Xinhua