The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) -- the Centre’s flagship initiative to tackle illiteracy in the country -- has been awarded an unsatisfactory grade by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. The SSA is unlikely to achieve its goal of providing universal elementary education to all by 2010, says the latest CAG Report. The programme has fallen back in achieving most of its targets so far. Neither the original goal of all children in school by 2003 nor the revised target of bringing all children in school by 2005 was achieved. Some 1.6 lakh children were out of school in 2005. The drop-out rate continues to be worrying; almost a quarter of children enrolled in the higher primary school level drop out. This indicates that the target of zero drop-out by 2010 is unlikely to be achieved. The SSA programme provided massive funds for improving school infrastructure but the condition of this infrastructure remains abysmal. Only 41 per cent of government schools have basic infrastructure. According to the report, two  per cent of government schools do not have buildings, 22 per cent do not have drinking water facilities, 46 per cent lack toilets and 59 per cent did not have electricity. Children have not been provided with books. Less than one  per cent has access to computer education. How can we expect children to show up in school or want to study when we do not provide them with the basic facilities?

 SSA funds have obviously been misused. There have been cases of funds being released to schools that do not exist and of televisions and computers being bought for schools that lack electricity. Officials have blamed ‘unrealistic and over-ambitious targets’ for failure of the SSA. This is an excuse to cover up official apathy and corruption. The government’s failure to reach the target of universal education by 2010 could have been condoned had it at least succeeded in building basic infrastructure for its schools, so that the next step could have been to bring children into schools. That has not happened. The only ‘achievement’ of the SSA seems to have been to divert public funds to the private pockets of officials, politicians and dubious NGOs.
Simply launching new programmes with fanfare is not enough. Monitoring implementation and acting at every stage to undo mistakes would have helped keep the SSA on track. Does the government have an action plan to achieve at least scaled-down targets in the next couple of years?