SSA finds school babus in slumber

Md A Basith / TNN / Apr 3, 2006, 01:26 IST

Text Size

Small
Medium
Large

The hope to revive these schools seems to be bleak even as the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and district admn has offered their assistance to reopen them.

HYDERABAD: Over 20 government schools in the city were closed down last year as they lacked permanent buildings.
The hope to revive these schools seems to be bleak even as the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and district administration has offered their assistance to reopen them.
This because the education department has been too lethargic to identify land for these schools.Result: Thousands of children are out of school, many of them working as child labourers.
According to sources, the district administration has offered lands to reopen the schools in 16 mandals in the city, while the Centre through the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) has earmarked Rs 16 crore for the construction of buildings.

The hitch: Local education officers have made no effort to identify the land for the schools to come up. "Once the location is identified, the mandal revenue officer concerned will allocate suitable government land.
After this, the SSA will commence construction work with the available funds,"the sources added. "There is plenty of government land in the city, but officials of the education department are not responding to our offer,"said district collector Arvind Kumar.

However, instead of identifying the locations, the deputy DEOs of the education department are passing the buck on to the higher authorities saying they have no permission to do so.
A deputy DEO requesting anonymity said, "The education department feels that once the school building is constructed, the government will have to provide manpower which will cause an additional burden on the exchequer."
Many schools which lacked own buildings were merged with bigger government schools resulting in cramming of children.
Nearly 50 Urdu and Telugu medium schools were moved to buildings where a school was already functioning. "By operating more than one school from the same building, the district administration is saving huge sums earmarked for rent,"a source said.
"This year we have sufficient funds for the construction of school buildings, but the education department is making no effort to identify land,"said SSA authorities.
Lack of basic facilities has a say in the continuance of children being left out of the joys of studying even as the government is making efforts to bring back the dropouts to schools through its much-trumpeted 'Badi Bata'.
Though exact figures are not available, sources said there are lakhs of children who are out of school attributing it to lack of will on the part of the government.

End of Article