SHILLONG: Voicing concern over high rate of school dropout, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly has called for the promotion of free education to contain it.
Addressing media persons after a meeting with the officials of the Education department here on Friday, Paul Lyngdoh, Chairman of the Committee, said that in view of high rate of dropout, which is around 20 per cent at the secondary level, the PAC advised the department to promote free education.
“We wanted to know how the cess on education being levied from government departments like Mining and Geology and others is utilized,” he said.
Referring to the SSA programme, he said, “For the last 16 years the sanctioned amount for prescribed books for each student in the lower primary and upper primary level has remained stagnant at Rs 150 and Rs 250 respectively.”
“Due to the time gap of 16 years the programme could not be effectively implemented as only 3 to 4 books per student could be bought with the allocated fund,” he said adding that the officials assured to look into the matter.
The PAC also took up the issue of mid-day meal scheme.
On the complaint that some teachers had to take their time off from teaching to cook mid-day meal for students, Lyngdoh said, “Cooks appointed under the scheme refuse to work for the meager remuneration of Rs 1000 per month”.
Regarding the supply of fuel for cooking mid-day meals, he said, “Most of the schools apart from urban and semi urban areas have no access to LPG and schools have to fend for themselves by fetching fire wood from the forests and in this case there has to be greater participation of the state Government.” In this connection, the department assured the PAC members that the supply of LPG to urban/semi urban schools will be done in a phased manner.
