BHUBANESWAR: Even as the state continues to permit more and more NGOs to open schools for special children every year, an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has exposed massive irregularities in the functioning of such institutions.
The CAG report, which was released recently, has found that both the Social Security & Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) department and School and Mass Education (SME) department have violated norms by allowing 35 per cent of the audited schools to operate without registration. Worse, officials concerned including collectors never monitored functioning of such schools despite government mandate.
In the state, the responsibility of educating children with disabilities lies primarily with private bodies. Currently, there are 108 special schools of which four are under the administrative control of the School and Mass Education department.
The remaining schools with a student strength of 6,815 are run by different NGOs under the administrative supervision of the SSEPD department. All the schools need to be registered under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act and also follow RTE norms. Every month, the NGOs get grant-in-aid from the government to run the schools.
The CAG which audited functioning of 65 NGO-run schools in eight districts over a period of five years beginning 2018, found out that registration of 23 schools had lapsed between 2009 and 2023 and although they had submitted renewal applications to SSEPD department, the latter never processed them.
While a majority of the schools lacked infrastructure, minimum amenities and failed to provide aids and appliances to the differently-abled students, the collectors and district social security officers (DSSOs) concerned overlooked the problems by not conducting routine checks.
As per norms, the schools that are opened with due permission need to obtain recognition under Odisha RTE Rules, 2010 and Odisha Education Act, 1969 for receiving grant-in-aid. In the case of schools for intellectually-challenged students, the SSEPD department grants recognition and for others, it is the SME department. Government reserves the right to withdraw the recognition in the absence of infrastructure and teaching and non-teaching staff.
The audit observed that six schools had not obtained recognition from the SME department since their inception between 1986 and 2012 but continued to receive grants of Rs 1.82 crore. Recognition of the remaining schools remained intact despite serious shortcomings in infrastructural needs.
While DSSOs are required to inspect the schools twice a month and district collectors review their field visit reports, no DSSO inspected the special schools in five of the eight sampled districts during the five-year period. Instead, the DSSOs in all the districts submitted inspection reports to the SSEPD department which were silent on various deficiencies like infrastructure, teaching-learning aids, amenities and human resources.