Chennai, Feb 20 : The Tamil Nadu school education department will be using the services of local body representatives to help stop children from dropping out of schools. The ongoing out-of-school children survey has revealed that around 1.3 lakh kids have dropped out of schools in recent days in Tamil Nadu. According to the school education department officials, 4,04,088 students under the age of 18 years were surveyed of which 1,38,821 were not enrolled in schools. The survey also found out that most students drop out of schools after their 10th standard. Some dropped out after failing the 10th class examinations and others as they had to support their families and opted for jobs. However, in order to improve the quality of the survey and to convince the parents to make their wards continue in schools, the school education department has approached local body members. Department sources told IANS that the state minister for school education Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has already taken a specific interest and has communicated to his department officials to rope in local body members for the same. The local body members who are in touch at the grass root levels can influence the parents of the children who drop out of tenth class even after passing the exam and urge them to make the children continue in schools. A local body member at Kanniyakumari, who is elected from a BJP ticket, while speaking to IANS said: "I am with the minister in this and will do my best to prevent children from dropping out of school and will convince the parents of these children to make the students continue their education so that they get good opportunities in their life to achieve and reach higher levels." He said that the basic reason for dropping out of schools is poverty and children wants to support their parents who are not able to earn much. The school education department is chalking out programmes so that the children are getting good counselling for continuing their education. The department hs already created a central data base with the help of Education Management Information System to have a focus on potential dropouts who have not attended classes for the last 15 days. It is also targeting students who are opting out of schools and finding out students who have migrated to other blocks and districts. The higher officials of the department have presented a paper to the minister stating that in such cases of children moving out to other blocks and districts, the services of the local body representatives would be much useful. /IANS