CAG finds loopholes, fund misuse in Andhra Pradesh's school education department

VIJAYAWADA: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out various irregularities in the School Education Department in its latest report, which was tabled in the State Assembly recently.
The CAG pulled up the State government for not maintaining proper statistics of out-of-school children and shoddy performance in implementing the Right to Education Act.
It also points out lack of infrastructure in schools. Over 2,400 schools in the State don’t have safe drinking water facilities, the report notes. The CAG also finds loopholes in the fund usage for children with special needs and noted that the actual coverage didn’t match the funds released.

Implementation of RTE Act

As per section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act, schools have to allocate 25 per cent of the total seats to the children belonging to the disadvantaged and weaker sections. Scrutiny of the records revealed that managements of unaided private schools had not made any reservations for children belonging to weaker sections and disadvantaged groups.
The managements of the schools are showing stiff resistance to the implementing section 12(1)(c) of RTE Act.
As the government thought that there would be a decline in admissions in government schools if  section 12(1)(c) of RTE Act gets implemented,  it wrote to Government of India, demanding scrapping of section 12(1)(c) of the RTE Act.

Performance of children

The CAG report also states that performance of children has been declined in the State.
The PAB observed in February 2017 that only 33% of class 5 students were getting over 50% marks in Mathematics and languages.
In class VIII, only 7% of students could secure marks more than 50 per cent in Mathematics and Science subjects.
The CAG says this was due to deficiencies in teaching and learning materials and implementation of revised curriculum.

Teaching and learning

The Education department had identified gaps in the teaching and learning from 201 to 2016. However, the CAG observed that the gaps still persist in the 2016-17. Though the department spent `81.07 lakh on learning enhancement programme at the State-level, the results were not better, the CAG noticed.
The CAG noted that only 57 per cent of the children who completed their primary education can read class 2 text book.

Student-teacher ratio
The CAG noticed that there were no teachers in 1,014 primary schools and 37 upper primary schools in the State during the 2016-17 academic year. These schools took the services of teachers of other schools and Vidya volunteers during the period, the CAG report said.
According to the Project Approval Board (PAB), 12,955 teacher posts were lying vacant in the State as on April 2017
The PAB had suggested that rationalisation of teachers based on the strength of the students was needed. The audit observed that there was 32-40 per cent shortage of teachers in both primary and upper primary schools.
As on March 2017, there were 7,360 primary and 114 upper primary single-teacher schools in the State.
1,014- Number of primary schools with no teachers
37-Number of UP schools with no teachers
 7360 -Number of single-teacher primary schools    
114 -Number of single-teacher UP schools