The Planning Commission has rejected the HRD ministry’s proposal to upgrade the UPA government’s flagship scheme, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), to the secondary level.
HT Image
After the success of SSA, the ministry had proposed to bring all government schools till secondary level under the ambit of the scheme, under its universalisation of education plan. For this, it has asked for an annual grant of over Rs 5,000 crores to cover classrooms of classes IX and X. The annual cost of SSA till upper primary level is about Rs 11,000 crores.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
The HRD ministry wanted the Centre to bear the costs for upgradation of the classrooms, including infrastructure and teaching. The Centre’s allocation would have been 75 per cent whereas the state had to bear the burden of remaining 25 per cent, the ministry had proposed.
Not willing to spare the money in the 11th five-year plan as desired by HRD ministry, the Commission refused to bear the cost at 75:25 ratio as prescribed by the ministry and costs for appointing teachers. “We have already told the ministry that from the next plan the expenditure will be equally shared between the Centre and the state,” a senior commission official said.
But, the major objection of the commission was regarding the ministry’s recommendation that the Centre should bear costs for appointing teachers in these schools. “It was just not possible,” the official said, categorically. His explanation was that the teachers appointed at secondary level are on regular pay scales unlike teachers in primary level, who are being hired at a much lesser pay on contract basis.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
However, HRD ministry had argued that paying for teacher’s salary would ensure that proper teacher-student ratio is maintained. Or else, infrastructure would be built and there would be no teachers to teach, the ministry had stated. “It is only that the Centre had paid for teacher’s appointment that SSA had succeeded till upper primary level,” an official commented.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
However, HRD ministry had argued that paying for teacher’s salary would ensure that proper teacher-student ratio is maintained. Or else, infrastructure would be built and there would be no teachers to teach, the ministry had stated. “It is only that the Centre had paid for teacher’s appointment that SSA had succeeded till upper primary level,” an official commented.
{{/usCountry}}
The commission has now asked the ministry to redraft the proposal taking into consideration its objections. The ministry had submitted the proposal to upgrade SSA to secondary level in late 2005.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
