EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 7: The School Education Department seems to be non-serious in implementation of proper Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme in government schools, which can be well understood from the fact that the evaluation aspect of the scheme was grossly overlooked as the vigilance committees constituted by the department to monitor the scheme proved farcical.
Sources told Early Times that in order to keep close watch on the implementation of MDM scheme, the vigilance committees were constituted, which had to conduct regular surprise visits in schools to take first hand information of the functioning of scheme.
“Except constitution of these Vigilance Committees, nothing was done by these committees which revealed from the fact that no minutes of the meetings held by these committees were ever recorded, which were in fact mandatory as per the guidelines,” they said.
They further said that the guidelines also required evaluation of the scheme by an independent agency at the State level in addition to the evaluation for drop-out of school children to be conducted by the Department. If sources are to believed no third party has been hired by the department to evaluate the scheme to find whether all children are getting a meal of satisfactory quality regularly and effect of meal on improving children's nutritional status, regularity of attendance, and retention in schools.
The lackadaisical attitude of the department has defeated the schemes and its objective, which is Centrally Sponsored Scheme was launched 1995 by the Government of India as a national programme of nutritional support to primary education. The Scheme aims to enhance enrolment, retention, attendance and simultaneously improve nutritional levels among children studying in Classes I to V in a Government, Government aided or local body schools. |
