More Than 3 Lakh ‘ghost Children’ Identified In Assam Govt Schools

Chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday took review of the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Assam which includes Elementary, Secondary and Teacher Education Departments at his conference hall at Janata Bhawan.

In the meeting, enrolment figure of all government and provincialised schools was showed as 46,69,970 from class I to XII in 2018-19 academic session which is lower than 49,82,180 of 2016-17 session.

The chief minister was informed that more than 3 lakh 12 thousand were identified as ghost children that were registered during the previous state government regime.

Revelations were made that the previous government had showed these fake figures of ghost children in government schools of the state for embezzling public money in the name of text books, mid day meals, uniforms, and so on, for these non-existent students.

The CM took strong note of such corrupt practices and said strict action would be initiated against those found guilty.

It was highlighted in the meeting that a total of 86,094 out-of-school students were identified by the Education Department out of which 63,406 children were mainstreamed into the formal education system till December 2019.

The CM said that this was a remarkable achievement of the State Government as these children of underprivileged background could not afford formal education and were engaged as child labourers in different sectors. This endeavour saved such human resources from getting wasted, he opined.

The CM also announced that a Chief Minster’s Special Teachers Award would be given to the best performing teachers in the government schools of the state for their contribution to overall development of academic activities of their schools, maintaining cleanliness and hygiene, inspiring the students to achieve their full potential etc so that teachers are encouraged to work doubly hard to achieve Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of holistic development of the schools.

He also suggested the development of a ranking system for the government schools on different indicators and parameters.

The CM also announced that a Sports and Physical Education Grant of Rs 25 thousand would be released to each of the 4,379 secondary schools (upto class X or XII) in the first week of February at a state level function along with an annual composite school grant of up to Rs 1 lakh.

In the meeting, the CM was also apprised about the three months self-defence training provided to girl students of 9,166 government and proviancialised schools and he directed the department to cover more schools and highlighted the importance of empowering the girl children with self-defence skills.

Discussions were also held about provincialisation of 100 schools in tea garden areas and the CM also directed the senior officials of the education department to visit schools regularly with clear objectives.

The CM also directed the department to explore the possibility of installing solar power panels on pilot basis at few schools in the city on PPP mode for fulfilling the power requirement of the schools.

Minister of the education department Siddhartha Bhattacharya, additional chief secretary of education department Maninder Singh, principal secretary to the chief minister Sanjay Lohia, commissioner and secretary of elementary and secondary education Pritam Saikia were also present, among other officials.