With their bags hung on their shoulders, children in uniform run through the green fields and in the background the song goes ‘School chalen hum’. This advertisement of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) may be impressing the viewers but it has little impact on 81,000 odd children of the State, who are not turning up to school this year even after spending Rs 710 crore in 2006-07 on SSA.

After spending nearly Rs 2,500 crore since 2001 when the SSA took off, officials have something to claim and pat their back. Last year there were around 1.07 lakh children out of school, but this year the number has come down to 80,863.

“Though the rate is not so satisfactory, we expect that in the next three-four years we may be able to achieve hundred per cent literacy rate in Karnataka,” said a senior officer with SSA.

But the question is where exactly the SSA is spending money to achieve hundred per cent literacy rate in the country?

The state project director of SSA, Mr L K Atheeq said, “We have out of school strategies, provision of basic infrastructure to primary schools, provision of training for teachers, inclusive education, management cost, civil works and national programme for elementary education to girls.”

Last year around Rs 372 crore was spent on construction of school buildings and additional rooms. Half of the total expenditure of Rs 710 crore has been spent on civil works.

But these buildings were constructed in such areas where no children were coming to schools. The National University of Educational Planning and Administration in its latest report after survey of primary education revealed that there were 7,945 schools without children.

Quickly, the SSA authorities refuted the report saying that the figures are erroneous. They said, the error had occurred because of snag in software, scanning and other technical reasons. The actual figure of schools without children, SSA claimed, is 339, of which 236 have been closed down.

According to Atheeq, the schools without children are merely 103. “We have merged such schools with a nearby school or have revived it,” he said. However, there is no word on the use of the building, which have been closed down.

The SSA last year could spend only 89 per cent of the total fund. Many districts could not utilise funds completely. For instance, Kodagu and Mandya district authorities were quite miser as they could spend only 71 per cent and 72 per cent respectively while Bijapur and Dharwad district were quite generous as they spent 100 per cent on this project. Gulbarga division and Belgaum division, which cover the northern districts, had maximum number of ‘out-of-school’ children. Gulbarga division had 44,663 and Belgaum division had 12,715 ‘out-of-school’ children.

NGOs’ role
The SSA had engaged several NGOs to bring back children to schools across the state. The Director (Programmes) of SSA, Ishwara Bhat said that most of the NGOs are working towards bringing children back to school. “If the annual budget is below Rs 10 lakh then the district SSA committee sanctions the sum and if annual budget is above the slot of Rs 10 lakh then the Grant-In-Aid Committee (GIAC) at Commissioner’s office sanctions the amount,” said Ishwara Bhat.

When the Head of Ananya Trust Shashi Rao was asked to rate the success of SSA in light of the given facts and figures, she said, success could be assessed only on the basis of quality education children are getting. “The content served to the children must be reviewed first. We also have to see whether the money spent on education has reached and how the children were benefited from it,” said Shashi.

She said when no children were coming, how then the school buildings were constructed. “Why there are buildings where there are no children and who was the local contractor? These questions need to be asked,” said Shashi Rao.

Regarding the role of NGOs she said, “I won’t say all are fake but there may be a good number of NGOs who are meant to extract more money.” 

HIGHLIGHTS
* Rs 2,500 cr spent on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan since 2001
*Rs 710 crore spent last year on SSA
*Rs 379.15 crore spent on civil works last year.
*339 schools without children
*81,000 ‘out-of-school’ children