Enrolment in UP govt schools declined by 18.6% in last 5 years: CAG report

The number of children enrolled in government-run primary and upper primary schools in Uttar Pradesh declined from 3.71 crore in 2012-13 to 3.64 crore in 2015-16, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has said.

The CAG report, which was released on Thursday, on the general and social sector for the year ending March 31, 2016, found that as enrolment in government schools declined by 18.6%, it went up by 36.5% in private unaided schools during 2011-16.

The government auditor noted that on an average there were 20 lakh dropouts every year. The state government, however, says that the average was 0.63 lakh children per year during the same period.

The CAG report said that the state-run schools also faced a shortage of 1.75 lakh teachers as against the sanctioned strength of 7.60 lakh.

Teachers were not deployed rationally as 17,732 primary schools and 1349 upper primary schools with an enrolment of more than 150 students did not meet the pupil teacher ratio (PTR). Also, nearly 7264 primary schools and 2377 upper primary schools with less than 50 students exceeded the PTR.

The audit analysis revealed that even after 6 years of the commencement of the right to education act,119 teachers posted in primary schools and 30,730 in upper primary schools did not possess the required qualification during the evaluation period. The RTE act requires that all teachers without the minimum qualification should acquire it within 5 years.

The CAG also found large scale anomaly in purchasing books, saying free textbooks were not provided to 6.22 lakh children in the state during 2012-16 by the UP government despite getting adequate funds under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA).

The report suggests that UP government provided only 1 set of uniform to the children under SSA during 2011-12, even though 2 set of uniforms were approved under the project. “Also, uniforms were not provided to 97 lakh children during 2012-16, though adequate funds were received under the SSA,” the CAG report said.

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It was also found that schools run by the government also lacked infrastructure and that out of 1.6 lakh schools in the state, 2978 schools did not have any drinking water facility and about 1734 schools did not have a separate toilet for boys and girls. Nearly 50,849 and 35,995 schools did not have playgrounds and library facilities respectively, it said.

“Further, there was no electricity in 34,098 schools despite incurring an expenditure of Rs 64.22 crore on wiring and electrical fittings,” the report added.

Himanshu Rai, who teaches at Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, said that the findings of the CAG on the enrolment in UP schools are “worrisome, though not surprising”.

“Having visited both government and private schools in far flung areas of UP with a view to audit their work, I had drawn the same conclusions. In the government schools, with the exceptions of some KVs and NVs, the quality of education in terms of content (books), pedagogy and teachers are abysmal. At several places, teachers on the roll don’t visit the schools except for the inspection days and classes are taken by proxy teachers, if at all,” he said.

“UP needs to have a stringent selection process for teachers, regular audits by independent agencies such as IIMs or IITs, content updation, pedagogical improvement, and regular faculty development training programs,” he added.

Officials in the state’s education department refused to speak on the issue.