Nov. 24, Srinagar: The latest UDISE-2023 data, which is scheduled to be submitted to the Government of India (GoI), officially designates clubbed or merged schools as “closed schools” by the School Education Department (SED). This is a significant step towards bringing transparency and accuracy to the education sector in Jammu and Kashmir.
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With this judgment, the deceptive practice of portraying non-functional schools as distinct establishments that was common in the area is meant to come to a stop.
With the bulk of institutions having been founded under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) program, the Jammu and Kashmir government has combined nearly 2400 government schools throughout the years.
The UDISE statistics, however, showed these schools as distinct establishments for a long time after the merger.
“This method was mainly used to obtain school grants from the Ministry of Education (MoE) through the Samagra Shiksha program, which replaced the previous SSA scheme,” an official said.
With little or no enrollment, these schools were grouped with other institutions in the vicinity.
About 2400 schools have combined in recent years as a result of the J&K government’s attempt to rationalize student enrollment and effectively use surplus instructors in classrooms that are experiencing teacher shortages.
A representative said that these combined schools will not be shown as distinct organizations in the most recent UDISE statistics (2023).
As officially shuttered schools, they would be appropriately categorized instead.
In the past, we presented them as independent schools in order to get financial aid and school subsidies from the Ministry of Education. It was stated by the authority that these schools were not officially shuttered.
In an effort to assure data integrity, he added, the Administrative Department decided to correct this practice this year by designating these institutions as closed.
The official said, “Some grants, like money for textbooks, uniforms, and supplies for after-school activities, are given out based on student enrollment.” “The data will be honest and free of hidden figures since they will be classified as closed schools.” This should facilitate the proper allocation of money by the government of India.
It was revealed by the official, nevertheless, that DDOs were not able to generate utilization certifications for funding received for the clubbed schools starting in the current session, unlike in prior years.
“With this change, the Ministry of Education will receive accurate data on schools,” the official said.
J&K Samagra Shiksha’s project director, Deep Raj, verified the change in the UDISE-2023 data and emphasized that budget allocation was now dependent on the number of schools as opposed to the enrollment of students inside a particular school.
Even with the school merger, he said, “the number of students stays constant.”
There was no need for these schools to get subsidies, according to Raj, since the department no longer runs these combined schools and does not use the premises.
“To ensure proper use, panchayats have been given control over these buildings. “So, no, we don’t need their financing,” he said.
Following the 2015 amalgamation of more than 2000 schools in J&K, more than 800 school buildings remained unoccupied.
“The official closure of these schools is a necessary step towards accountability that will guarantee proper and transparent allocation of funds,” an official said.
