The Union Ministry for Human Resource Development (HRD) will be undertaking a nation-wide survey of infrastructure and facilities in all government and government-aided schools in the country. ‘Shagunotsav’, as the survey exercise has been named, is a mega-exercise. It will involve some 73,000 surveyors and 11,85,227 schools in 36 states and Union Territories. What sets apart this survey from previous attempts at monitoring school infrastructure and facilities is that the surveyors will be doing on-the-ground assessment of the schools. Thus, it is for the first time that the HRD ministry will have data collected from field visits rather than from remote locations. The proposed exercise will provide the HRD ministry with data that more closely reflects the situation on the ground. The aim of the survey is two-fold. One is that the HRD ministry will be able to evaluate the authenticity of data provided to it by the states. Importantly, the data will provide policy makers and planners valuable insights on which to chart out future priorities in the education sector.
Although programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan enabled successive governments at the Centre and the states to improve the country’s ramshackle government school infrastructure, the facilities provided in these schools remain limited and stand in the way of children’s learning. Indeed, many school buildings are buildings only in name. Especially in remote, rural areas or conflict zones, school buildings do not have all walls or even a roof. Teaching often takes place in the open. Lacking notebooks, children use their fingers and the ground to write the alphabet and do math. In mountainous areas, children still have to walk several kilometres to get to school. With computer and software companies getting involved with the education sector, several schools now have computers. This is aimed at bridging the digital divide. However, what use is a computer when there is no electricity. Under Project Roshni, for instance, several leading corporates in Bengaluru tied up with BBMP to provide its schools with state-of-the art education. But their efforts have been systematically frustrated by our civic authorities’ disinterest in providing schools with basic infrastructure, such as electricity.
There is the danger that the data collected under the exercise will remain unused in the HRD ministry’s computers. That would be a pity but is not an unknown outcome in India. The data should be put to good use, and that will be possible only if the budgetary allocation for education is increased. Currently, India spends just around 3% of GDP on education. For several decades now, academics and education experts have been calling for a 6% allocation.
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