GUWAHATI, Jan 6 - Over three lakh �ghost� children in government schools were identified during a review meeting of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Assam, chaired by Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today.
The SSA includes Elementary, Secondary and Teacher Education departments.
In the meeting, enrolment figure of all government and provincialized schools was showed as 46,69,970 from Class I to Class XII in the 2018-19 academic session which is lower than 49,82,180 of the 2016-17 session. The Chief Minister was informed that over 3.12 lakh were identified as ghost children that were registered during the previous State Government�s regime, an official release said.
�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 textbook, mid-day meal, uniform, etc., for these non-existent students. The Chief Minister took strong note of such corrupt practices and said strict action would be initiated against those found guilty,� it added.
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.
Terming it as a remarkable achievement of the State Government as those children of underprivileged background could not afford formal education and were engaged as child labourers in different sectors, the Chief Minister said that the endeavour saved such human resources from getting wasted.
The Chief Minister also announced that a Chief Minster�s Special Teachers Award would be given to the best performing teachers in the government schools for their contribution to overall development of academic activities of their schools, maintenance of cleanliness and hygiene, enthusing the students to achieve their full potential, etc., so that teachers are encouraged to work doubly hard to achieve the Prime Minister�s vision of holistic development of the schools. He also suggested developing a ranking system for the government schools on different indicators and parameters.
The Chief Minister further announced that Sports and Physical Education Grant of Rs 25,000 would be released to each of 4,379 secondary schools (up to Class X or XII) along with annual composite school grant up to Rs 1 lakh in the first week of February.
In the meeting, the Chief Minister was apprised about the three-month self- defence training provided to girl students of 9,166 government and proviancialized schools and he directed the department to cover more schools and highlighted the importance of empowering the girl children with self defence skills.
The meeting also discussed the issue of provincialization of a hundred schools in tea garden areas, with the Chief Minister directing the senior officials of the Education Department to visit schools regularly with clear objectives.
