Only 11 govt schools upgraded

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 24

Despite all focus on the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme, the government has upgraded only 11 schools in two years against nearly 100 schools upgraded annually in the last nine years.

Only one school was upgraded from middle to senior secondary in 2015-16 and 10 this financial year. A total of 90 schools were upgraded in 2014-15, which was also the election year in the state. Most of these approvals came during the Congress rule under Bhupinder Singh Hooda, which upgraded nearly 2,000 schools since 2006-07.

Though most the schools did not fulfil the government norms for upgrade, these would be relaxed to “accommodate” the demand, since such applications usually come from schools in rural pockets.

With people reluctant to send daughters to schools located at a distance, upgrading village schools has been one way of discouraging girl dropouts. The holding up of upgrades, in that scenario, is clearly a disadvantage of the programme.

However, the School Education Department has its own side of the story, one which cannot be overlooked. Despite 200 applications pending with the department, the officers have their hands tied in view of shortage of teachers and lack of sanctioned posts.

“We are presently working with half the sanctioned strength of postgraduate teachers, which is 17,500. Also, upgrade means giving teachers, creation of infrastructure, availability of a contingency fund among other things. There is no point in upgrading schools without providing the basics, which is why we are going slow on the approvals. We have recently got sanctions from the Finance Department for 150 posts for schools upgraded in the previous government,” PK Das, Additional Chief Secretary, School Education, says.

Sources maintain that in the past, not only did the Congress government went easy on the norms for upgrade, but the sanctioned posts were redistributed in a way that teachers were moved from one school to another. This, the officials maintain, resulted in further shortage of teachers. The reason for the “poor show” of school upgrade in the Khattar government, officials maintain, is essentially because the government wants to get the posts sanctioned for the upgraded schools once approvals are given.