Andhra Pradesh Minutes of 44th PAB held on 1st May, 2014

60 Pages·2014·2.64 MB·English

by  Sanjay Gupta

Government of India
Ministry of Human Resource Development
Department of School Education and Literacy
*****
Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi
Date: 16.05.2014

Minutes of the 44th RMSA PAB Meeting (24th Integrated RMSA PAB Meeting) held on the 1st
May, 2014, for approval of Andhra Pradesh Annual Work Plan & Budget 2014-15 under the
Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).

1. The 44th Meeting (24th Integrated RMSA PAB) of the Project Approval Board of the
RMSA to consider the Annual Work Plan & Budget 2014-15 for the State of Andhra Pradesh
under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA, including the components of ICT@
Schools, Girls’ Hostels, Vocational Education and Inclusive Education for the disabled at
Secondary Stage (IEDSS) was held on the 1st May, 2014, under the Chairmanship of Shri R.
Bhattacharya, Secretary (School Education &Literacy).

2. The list of participants who attended the meeting is attached at Annexure-I.

3. Secretary (SE&L), at the outset, welcomed all the participants’. Thereafter, Joint
Secretary (SE-1), Ms. Radha Chauhan, briefed PAB that at the beginning of the 12th Five Year
Plan (2012-13), RMSA had committed liabilities to the tune of Rs. 8500 crores, but since no new
works were approved in 2012-13 and with limited approvals in the year 2013-14, the committed
liabilities have come down to the tune of Rs. 4800 crores.

4. However, the concern still remains since a number of States/UTs still have a huge
backlog of Non-Recurring works which could not be started due to the fixed cost norms of
earlier approvals, and where the States/UTs have not been able to arrange for the gap-funding
between the earlier approved norms and the State SoRs, and where the funds have been released
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to the States/UTs resulting in the situation where the States/UTs are sitting on a huge unspent
balance. She informed the PAB that this has resulted in preventing the release of funds from the

Ministry on one hand, which later on may lead to surrendering of funds from the scheme, while
the Scheme itself suffers from lack of funds. In light of the situation the State was requested to
utilize the funds sanctioned to enable further releases as well for new approvals being considered
by the PAB.

5. She also noted that that there is a need for the State to shift the activities of the subsumed
components to the RMSA SPD. Since funds for all the above components being released to the
RMSA Implementing Society (Through the State), all correspondence and communication will
be with RMSA SPD and the Secretary Education of the State/UT including financial matters
concerning all its subsumed components. Therefore, the States/UTs would do well to streamline
the activities relating to ICT @ Schools, IEDSS, Vocational Education and Girls’ Hostel
functioning into the RMSA Society and formally notify the RMSA SPD as the nodal person
anchoring all these activities.

6. She also informed the Board that in order to facilitate efficient implementation and also
address issues relating to the amount available to States under MMER, following provisions have
been made:
(i) Release of ad-hoc recurring grant to the tune of 25% of the expenditure incurred in the
previous FY by the States/UTs.
(ii) Facility of spill-over of funds relating to approvals of non-recurring grant that would
provide States/UTs with the flexibility to deploy funds regardless of year of its approval
(but as per norms under which they were approved).
(iii) MMER to be available as against the Annual Plan approval.
7. General issues highlighted for consideration and guidance of the PAB:
(i) Quality of Inclusion in Secondary schools (CWSN under IEDSS): The issue of
deployment of special education teachers was highlighted before the PAB. It was
pointed that at present there is no deployment policy of special education teachers in
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any State/UT and their (special education teachers) role in secondary classes needs to
be clearly outlined. At present, in most States/UTs, most of these teachers have not
been deployed in the schools but rather at the block headquarters with no defined role
and responsibility.
PAB advised that States should ensure that all these special education teachers (for
whom the financial support is being made from IEDSS) should be deployed in the
school(s), and if they are serving more than one school in the vicinity then their
formal deployment should be with the school having larger number of CWSN
children.
PAB also requested NCERT to guide the States by detailing the role of special
education teachers at the secondary level and if need be modify the curriculum to
meet the needs of CWSN children. Even though the IEDSS scheme has been
subsumed under the RMSA, the planning and implementation of this component is
still being carried out in an isolated manner at the implementation level, with some of
the States/ UTs still implementing the interventions under this component totally
through NGOs which is adverse to the overall objectives of scheme which envisages
State as the prime implementing agency and NGOs role being limited in aiding and
supporting the State.
The PAB emphasized that Secondary Schools need to be made more inclusive for
CWSN, with adaptations to infrastructure to be planned under the RMSA non-
recurring / civil works component, while the teacher training for improving inclusive
practices (targeted at CWSN) of subject teachers should be within the RMSA teacher
training package.

(ii) UDISE Data: The issue with regard to the quality of UDISE data of the State/UTs
was also raised. In the current year, MHRD/ TSG has used UDISE data to verify the
distance from the UPS to the proposed secondary school and on the basis of distance
shown in the UDISE data, the current year proposals for establishing new schools
have been appraised. However, the State/UTs claim some technical problem in
Column no 19B of the UDISE DCF which results in inconsistency as the distance
from UPS to Secondary Schools is shown as zero in many cases even if the actual
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distance is 6km or 15 kms. Due to this discrepancy in the data, proposals for new
school were not be found eligible for up gradation.
NUEPA was requested to look into this and the State/UTs may pursue the matter of
correcting the UDISE data with NUEPA. Further, though the timeline for sending the
UDISE data (Elementary and Secondary) to NUEPA is December every year, it is
seen that that States/UTs have not been able to send their UDISE data to NUEPA in
time, which in turn causes delay in the appraisal of RMSA plans, since they are based
on the UDISE data.
There are Discrepancies in the UDISE data, which are reflected in the mismatch
between this years’ data (2013-14) and last year’s data (2012-13).

The coding /categorization (lowest class/ highest class) is being followed differently
in different States/UTs, resulting in various interpretations of the number of schools,
for a same set of schools. Thus, while in Kerala, a school is given a single UDISE
code for the Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary and Higher Secondary, in Andhra
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Odisha, etc, the UDISE code
for Primary school is different from the code of the Secondary school and from that
of the Higher Secondary school, etc, resulting in these States showing a higher
number of government schools.

PAB requested NUEPA to clarify this and this is especially critical since the UDISE
will be the official data from this year onwards.

(iii) Quality Interventions- Adoption of Project Based Approach: The PAB outlining
the overall shift that is needed with four years of activity based interventions under
the Quality head of RMSA, emphasized the need for the States to adopt a holistic
project based approach to interventions wherein selected activities are put together in
a manner that the outcomes and objectives that are envisaged through those
interventions that are clearly defined and are measurable over a period of time
through basic indicators such as enhancement in enrolment ,retention, transition,
performance or reduction in drop out and so on. Each such intervention needs to be
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substantiated by its performance outcome which should be taken up for evaluation by
the State/UTs as part of its MMER activities.

(iv) In view of the limited availability of funds under the programme and also the fact that
States/UTs have been unable to act on previous approvals relating to recruitment and
appointment of staff , PAB indicated that approvals regarding Lab Attendants,
Librarians and Multi task Support Staff previously committed but not yet acted upon
be revoked with immediate effect. Approval/Commitment for salary was for that
particular year and if not acted upon and not revalidated specifically, later on stands
withdrawn.
(v) PAB also took note of huge backlog in recruitment and appointment of approved
teachers. In view of the limited fund availability under the scheme, it was noted that
provision of salary under the annual recurring grant shall be earmarked and
committed only for personnel formally in place. Any subsequent appointment
commitment of RMSA funds will be subject to availability of funds in the current
year.

8. Ms. Caralyn K. Deshmukh, Director (RMSA -1) gave a detailed overview of the status of
implementation, planning and monitoring of RMSA in Andhra Pradesh. In the presentation,
various aspects of implementation of RMSA scheme in the State including area of strength, area
of concern, major issues, decreasing Education Indicators (GER), progress of recurring and non-
recurring approved to the State under the RMSA were highlighted.
A copy of presentation is at Annexure II
9. State Initiatives:
(i) The State has upgraded 743 KGBV schools into secondary schools in the year 2013-14
from State Plan. Further, the State has also upgraded 272 ashram schools in the year
2013-14.
(ii) State has taken the decision to extend Mid Day Meal scheme upto secondary school
covering all secondary school students in the State. Free text books are also being
provided to the students belonging to SC/ST/Minority. Further, the State is providing pre-
matric scholarships to SC/ST children.
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(iii)Text books are being provided free to the students belonging to SC/ST/Minority category
(iv) Pre-matric Scholarship to Secondary School Students of SC/ ST category

10. Areas of concern:

(i) The State RMSA Planning team needs to be strengthened and a more stable tenure to
SPD would strengthen the planning, implementation and monitoring aspects of the
Programme

(ii) 405 govt. schools and 18 govt. aided schools are showing zero enrolment As per
UDISE data. UDISE data also shows there is no enrolment of class IX in 10 schools
approved in 2010-11 for last four years. State may verify this and report back to
MHRD within a month.

(iii) The GER and NER have decreased from 69.9% and 67.0% in the year 2012-13 to
68.50% and 65.96% in 2013-14 respectively. The matter has been discussed with the
State representatives who have accounted this on the use of census 2011 data for
population projection. .
(iv) The Pupil Teacher ratio (PTR) (Govt schools) at State level as per UDISE (with
1280673 students enrolled and 59105 teachers) comes out to be 22 in the year 2013-
14. However, State maintained that the PTR is 33.
(v) Of the total approved 104 schools under RMSA (102 in 2011-12 and 2 in 2013-14),
37 schools are still not functional. State informed PAB that the procedure for
recognition of the School by the AP Board has been taking time in 37 cases
(Approved 36 (2011-12) and 1 (2013-14)), and notification for these schools is to be
issued.
(vi) PAB was also informed that 28 schools in Ananthapur district which were reported
as functional in the year 2012-13 are reported closed in the year 2013-14. State will
have to confirm this information and report within a month.
(vii) Strengthening works in 21 schools of the 37 schools cancelled by the 23rd PAB were
taken up in other locations which the PAB did not approve. State will have to bear
the costs of these strengthening works in the 21 schools from State Plan.
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The overall completion of civil works in the State is 30.28%, 66.91% of the works
have not been taken up and 2.82% in progress. . Principal Secretary, Andhra Pradesh
assured that all works will be started by June, 2014 since tender process has already
started and will be completed within a year.

Since the inception of RMSA, the MHRD, GOI has approved in-service training of
398593 teachers. However, the State provided training only to 139202 (34.93%)
teachers. Further, recruitment of Teachers in New schools upgraded under RMSA is
very slow. Delay Statement against Audit & Annual Report 2011-12 is yet to be
revised by the State. Further the Annual Reports 2012-13 (both English & Hindi
Version) are still not yet received from the State. The audit observations for audit
report of 2011-12 and 2012-13 are yet to be addressed and compliance reports still
have to be sent.

In the Audit Report of 2011-12, the observations were made that State has not
reported State Share release of Rs 1819. Lakh in the UCs for 2009-10 and 2010-11,
and amount advanced(of Rs. 207 lakh) to districts as Teachers’ salaries are to be
treated as advances and not expenditure, till the UCs for that amount are received. In
the Audit Report of 2012-13, the observations have been made that the reported
amount of opening balance of 2012-13 and closing balance of 2011-12 vary and the
amount of Rs. 202.48 crore) advanced to districts as salaries are not to be treated as
expenditure till UCs are received .In addition , Rs 15.25 Crore is reported as
“Expenditure at District and SMDC level”. Component wise detail is required.

(viii) 700 schools approved in 2008-09 have not yet been implemented by the State under
ICT@school scheme. PAB was informed that these schools are Higher Secondary
Schools which are under the purview of the Department of Junior Colleges in the
State. At the request of the State approval of these schools stands cancelled.
List of 200 schools approved in 2006-07 was not provided by the state. State is
requested to inform the MHRD on this issue. State will have to make a Budget
provision for this component.
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(ix) Out of 355 approved GHs, State has completed works in only 3 GHs (226 In Progress
and not started in 26 GHs). Principal Secretary, Andhra Pradesh, assured that works
in 255 GHs will be completed by July, 2014 and remaining 100 GHs will be
completed before October 2014.

(x) Under Vocational Education Scheme, in 2013-14, release of recurring funds to the
State was subject to submission of certain clarifications, which are still awaited.
Details of Scheme of Subject wherein vocational education is to be taught as an
additional subject (6th subject) at the secondary level and as a compulsory elective at
the higher secondary level as notified/issued by the State Board of Education. Details
of curriculum and courseware to be taught in 46 schools approved under the Scheme.
As per the list provided by the State there is no clarity of trades proposed to be taught.
The State needs to resubmit the schools list with trade mapping. Variation in
enrolment of students in 46 approved schools as per the norms of the Scheme. Further
it was noticed that that 46 Junior Colleges approved under the Scheme are purely
Vocational Colleges wherein vocational education is not integrated with regular
school education. The State needs to clarify the issue.

11. Areas of Strength:

 GIS mapping has been completed in addition to manual mapping and distance matrix
exercise.
 The Gross access ratio at the State level is 84.7. Out of total 69814 habitations, 59134
habitations are served by secondary schooling facility.
 In Andhra Pradesh the structure for secondary education was from class 8th to 10th,
which has been re-structured by the State government to. 8+2+2. At present,
secondary school is from class 9th to 10th.
 91.83% teachers in govt. secondary schools. are B. Ed and M. Ed qualified
The PAB expressed satisfaction on these developments.

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12. Convergence of Schemes:
With regard to the convergence of Centrally Sponsored Schemes in Government schools,
12352 schools are covered under RMSA and 11027 schools under ICT@ Schools. Even though
Andhra Pradesh is one of the states getting a higher share of IEDSS funding, yet the mapping of
the institutions receiving IEDSS funding has not been done. The State is advised to map the
schools receiving IEDSS funding and Vocational Education funding into the UDISE data.
The objective is to cover the schools completely in terms of available schemes- the
whole school approach where a school improvement plan makes use of the available schemes at
the state and centre to ensure the holistic development and improvement of the school. Thus, a
school is ensured adequate and good quality infrastructure-compatible with the pedagogical
needs of the different classes and subjects, teachers training, remedial, libraries, laboratories,
children with special needs, special educators, ICT facilities, vocational education/options and
linkage with girls Hostels.
13. Special Focus Districts (SFDs)
Andhra Pradesh has 3 Special focus Districts (SFDs) and there are 737 Educationally
Backward Blocks (EBBs). As far as coverage of SFDs is concerned, out of the approved 104
schools, 97 are in LWE SFDs. Out of 5577 schools strengthened under RMSA, 457 are in the
SFDs. (LWE, ST and Minority) Out of 11027 schools supported under ICT@ schools, 464 are in
SFDs.
14. Progress under RMSA:
(i) Non-Recurring:
Out of total approved non-recurring outlay of Rs 1867.22 crore , expenditure of Rs
664.79 crore has been incurred upto 31st March 2014.
The overall completion of the State is 30.28%, 66.91% of the works have not been taken
up by the State and 2.82% in progress so far.

(ii) Recurring:
During 2013-14 financial year, a total of Rs. 501.91 crore recurring outlay was approved
for the State with a central share of Rs. 376.43 crore. GoI released an amount of Rs. 198.69
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crore. The State has incurred an expenditure of Rs 313.98 crore under the recurring head up to
31st March 2014

Annual Work Plan and Budget for 2014-15 for RMSA:
15. Thereafter, the intervention-wise discussion was held and following interventions were
approved:
Sl.No. Activities
NON RECURRING
RECURRING
1. Strengthening of existing Govt. School-
State proposed strengthening of 1838 existing schools, of which 758 schools were
eligible and balance 1080 schools were not eligible on following grounds:
• In 821 schools UDISE 2012-13 data showed that science lab/art craft / computer
room/ library are available in the schools
• 1 school has already been covered in previous years
• 158 schools' buildings are private
• Land is not available in 71 schools
• Information in 29 schools on Science Lab /Computer Room /Library / Art craft room
not available in UDISE
PAB did not approve strengthening of existing schools owing to a huge back log
under civil works and slow progress. State was advised to complete the ongoing
works first since it is likely that it will take the whole year for completion.
2. Staff for new schools sanctioned in previous years (2009-2014)
State has proposed financial support for 66 HMs and 330 teachers and PAB approved
12 months’ financial support for salary of 2 Headmasters and 61 Teachers who are in
position. 1 month’s notional financial support was approved for the rest of 64 HMs
and 269 teachers.
Additional 9569 teachers for existing schools sanctioned previously
PAB approved 12 months’ salary for 9569 teachers on the condition that the State will
provide documentary evidences in the form of recruitment orders/orders of promotion
in respect of the teachers.
3. Major repairs for Govt. Schools:
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