HYDERABAD: Though it is the educational sector that receives the major portion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding in Telangana, there is a need for focused spending on secondary education and vocational training for girls, as per a survey and research conducted by NGOs Mahita and Plan India International. A report on the same was released on Thursday.
The survey was part of a strategy paper that aimed to “Influence CSR policy to invest in Secondary Education and Job Oriented Vocational Training for Adolescent Girls in AP and Telangana”.
The study explores the various contributions of CSR in India, specifically in Telangana. It revealed that in the financial year of 2016-17, educational initiatives received Rs 864 lakh under CSR — the highest amongst all sectors.
However, it focused on a wide range of areas, like, improving primary education, learning environment in terms of mid-day meals, WASH initiatives, and menstrual hygiene. A significant amount was also being spent for vocational training.
The researchers found that only a miniscule part of CSR was dedicated to improving quality in the secondary education sector, which had the highest number of drop-outs.
Over 100 respondents/stakeholders were interviewed in the survey by Mahita. For a majority of the respondents, secondary education was not a priority area. Their focus was on primary education and job skilling. The stakeholders interviewed were CSR heads of corporations, NGOs, and government officials. Almost 61 per cent of the respondents were least interested in spending on secondary education. However, a majority of them were interested in spending on job oriented skill development.
The lack of attention for senior education, especially that of girls, can be attributed to the fact that most of the stakeholders were not aware of how crucial this age group was. Further, corporates are keen on monitoring and evaluating their CSR spends; this exercise is not tangible for the age group of 10-16 years. “For children below 10, they invest on buildings and infrastructure or buy books and uniform. But we need to go beyond this for senior education — like investing on labs, or mass sensitisation programs,” said Ramesh Sekhar Reddy, director of Mahita.
Experts further note that CSR in this age bracket was crucial as this was an area that the government barely invested on. “Data shows that as the children grow older, the governments spend less on them,” said Dr Murali Krishna from the UNICEF.
CSR targets Hyd, K’nagar, RR districts; leaves out rest of State
Hyderabad: There is an urgent need to encourage IT companies in Hyderabad to extend their CSR beyond the twin districts. Statistics suggest that Hyderabad, Karimnagar, and Rangareddy districts get more CSR attention than others. As per data from 2016-17, the money spent on Hyderabad was Rs 166.72 crore, followed by Karimnagar at Rs 21.12 crore. Meanwhile, Rangareddy listed Rs 13.84 crore of CSR money. Other districts, in actual need for CSR efforts, were disproportionately ignored. For instance, Siddipet and Adilabad received 0.16 crore and 0.27 crore respectively. Experts claimed that though corporates preferred investing near their plants, they must extend their territory for a tangible monitoring and evaluation of the response. “There are remote corners in Adilabad which need urgent intervention,” said RS Praveen Kumar, secretary, TRSSWES