news details |
|
|
| 96 percent SSA funds spent on Salaries, infrastructure | | PCI rebuts J&K govt's vehement claims | | syed junaid hashmi
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 17: Planning Commission of India (PCI) has strongly rebutted vehement claims of successful implementation of centrally sponsored Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme by Jammu and Kashmir school education department.
Despite getting 79 percent budgetary support for implementation of the scheme, commission has in its evaluation report on the implementation of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) held the state government responsible for spending most of the funds meant for the scheme on raising the infrastructure and paying the salaries to the teachers appointed under the scheme.
Report has pointed out that J&K spent 43 percent on raising the infrastructure, 53 percent on salary and a meager 4 percent on improving quality. Report which is based on the field survey conducted over a period of four months beginning from February 2008 has pointed out that J&K education department prioritized salaries over improving quality of both infrastructure and education in the schools either opened or upgraded under SSA scheme.
It has further said that teacher vacancies were high in rural schools and less in the urban schools. Report has also reasoned lack of adequate number of teacher training institutions in rural areas as reason for teacher shortages.
It has held out that teacher motivation is low on account of non-teaching activities such as pulse polio, supervision of civil works, and household surveys. It has further added that teachers are not consulted in curriculum construction or in the preparation of district education plans.
A major drawback which the report has pointed out is that teachers are unwilling to be posted in remote areas while separate teachers for three subjects viz. Math, Science and Computer are not available. Report has also referred to serious shortage of support manpower alongwith non-availability of separate and permanent staff for SSA implementation at district and sub-district levels.
Inadequate manpower in block resource centres and cluster resource centres for monitoring and capacity building has also been reasoned for unsuccessful implementation of the SSA. Regarding children out of schools and student absenteeism, report asserts that the phenomenon is more due to seasonal migration, illiteracy, sibling care, economic backwardness and parental negligence.
While recommending for quarterly disbursement of funds at sub-lock levels for better Utilization, report has said that funds are released late. Besides, districts get funds under rigid heads, non flexibility in deployment of resources, says the report. It has added that village education committees (VECs) are not reflecting greater sense of ownership to ensure transparency in usage of funds or maintenance of records.
Pointing towards the official inadequacies, report has stated that composition of district level monitoring teams has been restricted to a few members including accountants and data entry operators while there are no records available at school level of visits by block or district teams. PCI has held out that involvement of NGOs is limited to a few activities and that too at the district or block level while their presence in villages is nil.
However, intriguingly, when PCI sought to know constraints in the implementation of the scheme from the implementing authorities of J&K education department, they referred to shortage of teachers, inadequate manpower in supporting institutions, delay in receipt of funds and even shortage of funds.
Further, when asked about the poor quality of education, they again said that funds are not released on time and that they are suffering from lack of adequate resource support for implementation. When asked about improving the quality of education, J&K claimed of having implemented computer learning as an innovative activity. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
STOCK UPDATE |
|
|
 |
| BSE
Sensex |
 |
| NSE
Nifty |
|
|
| |
CRICKET UPDATE |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
