Nagaland Schools Under SSA In Dark With No Proper Electrification, Shortage Of Teachers - Eastern Mirror
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Nagaland

Nagaland schools under SSA in dark with no proper electrification, shortage of teachers

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By Reyivolü Rhakho Updated: Mar 18, 2021 9:17 pm
Nagaland schools under SSA in bad shape
Infrastructure of Nagaland schools under SSA in shambles.

Our Correspondent
Kohima, March 18 (EMN):
A report released by the Directorate of Evaluation showed that many schools under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme in Nagaland still lack basic amenities including electricity, good water supply connection, proper school building and furniture, as well as day-to-day required stationeries in classrooms.

The directorate of Evaluation released a “monitoring and evaluation report on SSA programme” after evaluating 75 schools in five districts — Kohima, Peren, Longleng, Kiphire, and Zunheboto (random selection).

The department carried out the evaluation on the state government’s directive to monitor the Prime Minister’s 15-point Programme in the state, where the department had picked up the SSA programme.

“None of the schools (75) have proper electrification and schools cannot run during the rainy season”, the report stated, a copy of which was made available to this newspaper.

None of the schools had water supply connections while some schools had rainwater-harvesting tanks constructed under the SSA programme. Construction of drinking water facility schemes of 2015-2016 awarded to the schools had not started due to non-release of funds, it stated.

Three out of 75 schools had boundary fencing while the remaining 72 did not have fencing around the schools though they had received funds for boundary walls/fencing during the initial period of SSA programme implementation in the state.

The monitoring team found that the schools lacked stationery items as well as day-to-day requirements like chalk sticks, white board, pens and papers, the report stated.

Furniture in schools is needed particularly in the upgraded government middle schools (GMS) in the state, it informed.

Almost all the newly upgraded GMS did not have Mathematics, Science, Social Science and Hindi teachers in schools. The school authorities had conveyed to the department that upgrading schools without required teachers was meaningless, it said.

“Since the inception of the SSA programme in Nagaland, the schools received infrastructure development from the civil works component. However, the selection of schools for civil works was imbalanced as some schools were selected repeatedly whereas some were hardly selected even for once.

“40 out of 75 schools still need proper school buildings. All the evaluated schools have toilet facilities but only some schools have separate toilets for boys and girls,” it said.

Dropout reduced

The students drop out rate in Kohima was reduced to 5%, Peren district to 10%, Longleng district to 25%, Kiphire district to 22% and Zunheboto to 7% after the implementation of SSA programme and Right to Education Act in the state, it stated.

Majority of the district mission authority (DMA) offices and educational block resources centres (EBRC) conveyed that instead of supplying raw materials for uniform, readymade uniforms with all the sizes should be provided to students in future. They also expressed appreciation that SSA mid-day-meals had encouraged students to come to schools and suggested that nutritional food be included in addition to the present foods being provided. 

The EBRC stated that the schools were not getting school grants, teachers’ grants, teaching learning materials etc.

The monitoring team of the department observed that there was less co-ordination between DMA and office of the district education officer and sub-divisional education officer in implementation of SSA programme in the districts.

Training of Trainers programme in all the EBRCs in the state was sitting idle due to non-release of teachers’ training grants and monitoring and supervision grants. Further, SSA teachers in the state were not getting their salaries for many months, it added.

However, the evaluation pointed out that after the implementation of the SSA programme in the state, significant improvements were detected in the field of school building infrastructure, teacher’s appointment and student drop-out rate and ‘people were happy’ with the works undertaken under the SSA, it added.

The report went on to observe that if the SSA programme was withdrawn from Nagaland, the Education department would not be able to undertake the civil works, teacher’s appointment or provide grants to the schools that are being been done under SSA.

SSA is a centrally-sponsored programme launched nationwide in 2001-02 to attain universal education.

As per the report, the gross total amount received by the state mission authority for Nagaland during three years—2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16 of SSA programme monitoring was INR 45111.28 lakh. The same amount was utilised during the years.

Nagaland schools under SSA in bad shape

According to the latest annual administrative report of the School Education department, there are 1990 schools under the department of School Education, with 1071 government primary schools, 628 government middle schools, 251 government high schools and 44 government higher secondary schools in Nagaland.

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By Reyivolü Rhakho Updated: Mar 18, 2021 9:17:54 pm
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