Centre’s push to school education in Telangana

Hyderabad: The Centre claims to support and extend assistance to education in Telangana comes against the backdrop that Centre is treating the youngest State unevenly.

The data relating to central support for school education falls under three to four categories extending support to school education in the State. The focus is to give impetus to the New Education Policy (NEP).

Accordingly, the schemes related to school education have been aligned with the objectives of NEP to ensure quality education. Accordingly, under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) the central support to Telangana is being pegged at Rs 7,461 crore. The SSA is a single initiative after merging Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE), as primary, high school and teacher’s education being treated as a single continuum. Quality, enhancing learning outcomes of students, bridging social and gender gaps, inclusion at all levels and minimum standards in schooling provisions and promoting vocationalisation are set out as the main focussed objectives under the SSA. The central government’s data reveals there are 736 schools in operation under Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBVs), and 20 new ones have been sanctioned to Telangana. While Rs 104.64 crore is met under the National Merit Cum Means Scholarships for Telangana, Adult Education is given Rs 46 crore.

The State initiative to improve the school infrastructure under Mana Ooru-Mana Badi includes funding from the SSA. That apart, more than 23,000 schools in Telangana have been provided with drinking water connections under Jal Jeevan Mission, a central scheme.

The Mid-day meal to provide nutritious food to the school children is another component under which 20 lakh students are provided mid-day meals with a cost of Rs 1,663 crore from the Centre, under PM POSHAN Shakti Nirman. Also, the central component includes an honorarium payment of Rs 1000 per month to the 53,176 cooks and helpers positioned to implement the mid-day meal in the schools.

One cook cum helper (CCH) can be engaged for 25 students, two cook cum helpers (CCHs) for schools with 26 to 100 students and an additional cook cum helper for every addition of 100 students as the enrollment numbers go up in a school.

The menu of the mid-day meal is left to the State government with a set of guidelines that it should decide a menu suitable to the local conditions within the prescribed nutrition and food norms. Also, to encourage locally grown food items like millet, vegetables, condiments and others from Farmer Producers Organizations, Federation of Women Self Help Groups and others. Making the scheme’s objective to trigger in a small way to ensure a guaranteed supply chain of vegetable and fruit marketing to the local farmers and create livelihoods for the women of the self-help groups. Whether the State agriculture marketing and SSA project department of the State School Education Department enabled this integration with FPOs and SHGs working in silos remained unanswered.

The PM SHRI Schools is another component for comprehensive interventions in schools at all levels. Students of 543 schools in Telangana are extended support with Rs 800 crore. The central government data claims that the initiative is extended to increase learning outcomes of each child and every middle-grade child exposed to 21st century skills. Also, every secondary-grade child passes out with at least one skill. Sports, Arts and Information Communication Technology facilities, sustainability and ‘Green School’ are the other objectives of it. Each school is also linked to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) for mentoring and the local entrepreneurial ecosystem, and every pupil gets access to counselling for psychological well-being and career prospects.

Apart from the SSA, mid-day meal, and PM SHRI, the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghathan has been running 35 Kendriya Vidyalayas in Telangana with a strength of 40,000 students. Each student is supported with an estimated cost of Rs 30,000 per year. The data shows the Centre supporting running of nine Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas and owing to a residential facility for imparting quality education. The current strength of the students is pegged at around 3,500, with an expenditure of Rs 85,000 on each student per year.

A proposal to start a lone Sainik School, sanctioned to Telangana at Elkurthy in the combined Warangal district. The data shows that setting up the school hit a roadblock ever since 2017. As the land required is not yet transferred by the State government.