Year on, govt schools await infra grants

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, January 21

Though the state government claims to have taken steps to improve infrastructure in government schools, it has failed to provide funds for the same. 

In fact, in 2018, none of the government school in the state received any grant from the Education Department. Unsafe buildings, broken lavatories, shortage of benches and no teaching tools are common in government schools.

There were many instances, wherein, teachers were reported to have contributed from their own pocket to improve the infrastructure of their respective schools. Satish Vidhrohi, school in-charge, Government Elementary School, Balbehra village, has spent more than Rs 2 lakh from his pocket for uplifting infrastructure of the institution.

In-charge of various government schools said remittance of funds had been erratic over the last two years. Each school in the country is supposed to receive school maintenance grant, school development grant and teacher learning material grant every year. 

However, government schools in the state, reportedly, did not receive any grant, last year.

“If the situation remains the same, the day is not far when the pre-primary pilot project is going to fail,” said teachers. 

“The Education Department has failed to provide school funds over last two years. Subsequently, teachers themselves are going door-to-door in villages to collect funds. They are seeking help from NGOs too,” said Bhupinder Singh, a teacher at Government High School, Bolar Kalan village.

“On the one hand, the government talks about upgrading the infrastructure in schools and on the other, it has stopped giving funds. The burden to improve the infrastructure has fallen        on teachers,” said Davinder Punia, co-convener, Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha.  

However, officials said delay in disbursement of school grants was due to the merging of SSA and RMSA into Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan by the Central Government. 

“Last year, there was a lot of chaos over distribution of funds. We are hoping that schools will get the grant soon,” said Sanjiv Sharma, deputy project director, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan.

 The maintenance grant ranges from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 per school per year if it has up to three classrooms. Maintenance of school building includes whitewash, bathrooms, boundary wall and playground. The school development/facility grant includes equipment such blackboards, mats, chalks, dusters, registers and other things.