Last week, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar got shirty over the attack by his hated rival Narendra Modi, who had rubbished the state government’s education record. However, Modi may just be right when he spoke of dummy schools proliferating in the state. Bihar may boast of getting a second Central University for the state, but the state government has thrown up its hands when it comes to building schools, citing land non-availability.
Going by Bihar government’s own admission, the school infrastructure sector presents a grim picture. Along with the huge infrastructure gap, Bihar government’s expenditure on education too is meagre, almost negligent compared to the government’s interest in getting higher educational institutions. The state government’s negligence towards school education is evident when it cites land problem on one hand and goes out of the way to get land for major Central educational institutions.
According to Bihar government’s confession before the Ministry of Human Resource Development, all 15,000 school buildings were sanctioned in 2006-07 and no new buildings sanctioned thereafter. Only 50 per cent cost was approved in the year 2007-08 and remaining budget was approved in the subsequent years against different lots of physical approvals. During 2010-11, of the 15,000 school buildings sanctioned, construction of 4,496 primary school buildings were deferred as land was not available.
During the discussions for approval of the Annual Work Plan and Budget of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in Bihar for 2013-14, a state government official informed the Ministry of HRD that as far as “the opening and construction of new primary schools, non-availability of land is a big problem.” Moreover, the official said a campaign has been launched for land donation.
The state has a total of 73,591 government and government-aided schools and 2.08 crore children are enrolled in these schools. State Principal Secretary assured the ministry that all ongoing civil works would be completed by December 2013.
The Economic Survey 2013-14 of Bihar said, “The success with respect to high enrolment becomes meaningful if the enrolled children are retained in the school. But substantial dropout before completing a certain education level is a problem in Bihar. All the factors behind such dropout may be broadly clubbed into economic factors, social and cultural factors and school environment and infrastructure. In case of Bihar, all these factors are operative in varying degrees.”
Despite the school infrastructure component in SSA—a Central scheme—Bihar government informed the Ministry of HRD in April 2013 that 2.71 lakh children were still not in school, pupil-teacher ratio is high at 57:1, large number of teacher vacancies, 11 per cent of schools have no buildings and the progress of civil works for construction of schools was not satisfactory and non-availability of land is a major hindrance for construction.
The Economic Survey 2013-14 pointed out that government expenditure on education in 2007-08 was 18.3 per cent of the total budget. And the expenditure on education had come down to 17.9 per cent in 2008-09 and 15.8 per cent in 2010-11.
According to the data with the Ministry of HRD, as on September 30, 2013, under SSA, NPEGEL and KGBV, the Bihar government could spend only `1,44,033 lakh of the total available funds of `3,45,130.22 lakh, in which the Centre had provided `1,36,508.94 lakh.
Contrary to the attitude of Bihar government towards construction of schools and solving the land problem, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar fought with the Centre arguing that the land would be made available free for the Central University. The government had allotted `200 crore for acquiring about 300 acres of land at Motihari for the university. It had allotted 536 acres for IIT-Patna to set up a permanent campus. The Bihar government has allotted 100 acres of land in Bihta for NIT-Patna.