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Friday, March 29, 2024

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Friday, March 29, 2024

Crumbling infrastructure another thorn in SSA’s flesh

By Abha Anindita

Schools without benches and classrooms without roofs — historically, these have been some of the characteristics of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) schools in Meghalaya.

In Part I of the series, we highlighted how financial irregularities created obstacles for the SSA programme right since the beginning. Part II also narrated the story of carelessness in implementation of the program due to which learning outcomes for students and teachers took a hit alike.

In Part III, we will see how the state had turned a blind eye towards the infrastructural development of the SSA schools, a trend which started early and can be seen today as well.

Media reports have actively highlighted the poor state of SSA schools in recent times, showing the dilapidated state of the infrastructure. But the current state is a result of a series of historical inadequacies.

Source: 191st Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee On Human Resource Development, 2007

The 191st Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee On Human Resource Development in 2007 had noted the “very slow” pace of civil work of SSA schools, even when the state was given sufficient grants for the programme, which it did not utilise.

In fact, the report had noted that Meghalaya had an unspent amount of Rs 15.25 crore, which it did not spend in 2004-05, due to which the Centre did not approve any fresh approval of work from the state in 2005-06. At the same time, the state had failed to even contribute its own share of Rs 2.48 crore in the development of SSA schools.

Due to such delays, the state also missed important infrastructural compliances in those years.

As per SSA guidelines, schools must provide for hygienic and separate toilet facilities for boys and girls. The SSA Evaluation Study report, launched by the state government in 2011, had noted that a major reason for high dropout rates in the state, especially for girls, was due to the lack of separate toilet facilities.

It had highlighted that 63 per cent of the schools in Meghalaya had common toilets then, in turn impacting attendance and enrolment rates in schools. About 36.47 per cent of schools had no toilets at all, where construction was not undertaken by the state despite the Centre sanctioning money.

Even potable water for students was an issue where 43.60 per cent of schools had no proper drinking water facilities at all. Students had to fetch it from the nearest tube well or any other available source, undermining the hygiene.

The tale of sorry infrastructure also extends to the shortfall of classrooms. Despite norms prescribing the need for separate classrooms for every grade, the 2011 report had shown that 43.59 per cent SSA schools in the state did not have separate classrooms, thereby resulting in students across grades sitting in the same classroom at one point of time.

While non-educational infrastructure was crumbling, educational infrastructure had not made any significant progress as well. Even with India introducing various computer learning programmes in school education at the beginning of the millennium, SSA in Meghalaya implemented a namesake model.

The SSA Evaluation Study, 2011, had highlighted that many SSA schools in Meghalaya were given a computer without electricity. Nearly 67.52 per cent of schools had no electricity connection at all.

“A computer without electricity connection does nothing for increasing computer knowledge,” the report had noted.

The sorry state of computer education in the state under SSA is still a lingering recent phenomenon, which was also highlighted in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), 2017.

In East Khasi Hills district, out of 448 eligible schools, only 48 schools had functional computer-aided learning (CAL) programmes. In West Garo Hills, out of 309 schools, only 34 schools had CAL and in Jaintia Hills, out of 369 schools 65 had the same.

“The slow progress of the CAL had resulted in depriving 77 per cent to 90 per cent of children of the eligible schools from the benefits of computer aided learning,” the report had cited.

The crumbling state of infrastructure was also highlighted by the Performance Grading Index (PGI) report of 2019-20 which ranked Meghalaya amongst the states with the worst infrastructure after evaluating for 70 parameters.

While the education minister of the state LakhmenRymbui had said that the PGI report was an “eye-opener” for the education department, he also pledged to upgrade 200 schools.

Chief Minister Conrad Sangma took it a notch up by committing this year that in the next six months, more than 2500 government LP schools will be renovated and repaired at a lump sum cost of about three lakhs rupees.

He had further stated that about Rs 45 lakh each would be used for about 78 government LP schools, which were in dilapidated conditions, adding that 11 secondary and higher secondary schools would be given financial sanction of about rupees four crore for overhaul of infrastructure and learning facilities.

A report on the status of infrastructure upgradation is yet to be provided.

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