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Slow progress mars effort to make Satara schools RTE compliant

-The Times of India

The building of school infrastructure as per norms set by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, is moving at a rather slow pace in the neighbouring Satara district. This, despite the substantial financial allocations made through the central government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) programme.

An independent assessment of 146 schools across Satara district, carried out by the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research (CPR), has brought out this fact. The exercise formed part of the CPR's

'Planning, allocation and expenditure: Institutions studies in accountability' (PAISA) district study carried out by CPR's research wing.

Satara was one of nine districts in seven states across India where the study was done to find out the extent of change brought out by the RTE Act, which completed two years since becoming became operative from April 1, 2010. The act defines, among other things, the minimum required school infrastructure, which is expected to be in place within three years of it coming into force. It includes, for instance, an all-weather building consisting of at least one classroom for every teacher; an office-cum-store-cum-headmaster (HM) room; separate toilet blocks for boys and girls; safe and adequate drinking water facilities for all children; barrier-free access; boundary wall; kitchen for cooking mid-day meals; library and playground.

The deadline for putting up this basic infrastructure is the end of March 2013.

However, the PAISA report says that more than three-fourths of the schools in Satara lacked a complete boundary wall. Only 6.8% schools started boundary wall construction and 15.2% schools started toilet construction work as late as in 2010-11. Nearly 30% of the schools lacked a functional girls' toilet and satisfactory drinking facility. One-third of the schools did not possess a playground. A quarter of the schools had no library. Almost half the schools did not have a separate HM's room, the report stated.

"Satara has fared well compared to other districts covered by the PAISA study, but considering Maharashtra's high budgetary allocation and expenditure on schools, the progress has been slow," said Ambarish Dongre, a senior researcher with the research wing 'Accountability Initiatives'. Apart from the 146 schools in Satara, the study covered another 1,154 schools in the other eight districts of the country, Dongre said told TOI.

Through the SSA, the central government provides for 65% of the state's elementary education budget. The remaining 35% is provided by the state government and the same is usually spent on administrative expenses like teachers' salaries and maintenance of school infrastructure. Maharashtra's elementary education budget increased from Rs 9,157 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 12,585 crore in 2010-11 with the allocation per child working out to Rs 12,075. Of this, Satara's elementary education budget stood at Rs 317 crore, while the investment per child in Satara amounted to Rs 14,766, the PAISA report stated. In fact, the school infrastructure budget for Satara went up by 61% in 2010-11 over the previous year 2009-10. Allocation for construction of boundary walls around the schools increased from Rs 0.88 lakh to Rs 211 lakh. Similarly, from Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 17.7 lakh for construction of toilets, the report pointed out.

Dongre listed several reasons for the slow progress. "The schools are unaware that the money has been transferred to their bank accounts by the Zilla Parishad i.e. the local self-governing body for the district. Sometimes, the schools are located far away from banks, making it difficult for them to monitor their bank accounts regularly. Sometimes, schools are unaware of the purpose of the grant and subsequently, there are deliberations in school management committees as to what should be done with the money," said Dongre.

Satara zilla parishad's primary education officer Mahesh M Palkar said, "Our (ZP's) role is confined to being a monitoring body, which provides funds to schools in the district to fulfill the criteria of the RTE Act. We monitor fund utilization by schools in the district. We transfer funds to schools and give inputs to them as to how the funds can be utilized to comply with the act."

But Palkar conceded, "There are various crippling problems in our way to achieve the target by next year. Firstly, there are few skilled engineers in our area who can help us put together the infrastructure in schools. Secondly, constructing new infrastructure requires space, which comes at a premium. Finally, there is a paucity in water supply in several blocks in the district, making it hard for us to provide drinking facility to the children to children."

The slow progress of work means that a majority of the schools now find themselves running against time to meet the March 2013 deadline.