E-Paper
Audit to check working of Samagra Shiksha Scheme at UT schools
All 112 government schools of the city will be covered under the scheme in a five year period with 22 government schools audited every year for the first four years and 24 schools audited in the final year
Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UT education department to conduct a social audit of the Samagra Shiksha Scheme in the city’s government schools.
All 112 government schools of the city will be covered under the scheme in a five year period with 22 government schools audited every year for the first four years and 24 schools audited in the final year.
Samagra Shiksha (SS) was launched in 2018 by the Union ministry of education by merging three older schemes, namely, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teachers Education (TE).
As per director school education Harsuhinder Pal Singh Brar, the UT education department gets around ₹120 crores from the Centre annually under this scheme. While the UT gives an account of where this money is being used in the annual project approval board (PAB) meeting with the union ministry, now a third-party audit is being done to look into the utilisation of the funds. As per sources, this will be done in other cities as well, as the central government is looking into the viability of the scheme.
The grant is used to disburse salaries to around 1,700-1,800 teachers employed under SS at the city’s schools and to get sports equipment and other infrastructure especially for children with special needs for the city’s schools. As per officials, the disbursement of salaries to teachers under SS has faced issues in recent times which is also likely to be checked in the audit.
As per the MoU document accessed by HT, the social audit will check that the entitlements of children guaranteed under Right to Education Act and funded through SS are being provided, to verify the timely authorisation to spend funds under single nodal account of SS state implementation authority and to check the status of the infrastructure in the school along with status of works initiated through the funds sanctioned.
All shortcomings identified under CCPCR social audit still not rectified
This is not the first social audit of the government schools conducted by a separate agency. The Chandigarh Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (CCPCR) had carried out an audit of all government schools after a student died by a tree falling on her at Carmel Convent School in Sector 9 in 2022. As per officials, audit results have been shared with the UT engineering department and while the maintenance work is ongoing, many shortcomings have still not been fixed.
