Chennai: Aiming to cut costs, the Tamil Nadu government has sent a proposal to merge both the directorates of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) from the coming academic year (2018-19).
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), which is facing a fund crunch, had asked all the state governments to merge both the directorates for better management and to reduce the costs.
“We have sent a proposal to MHRD to absorb all RMSA posts including the director and joint director posts. Though the merger will bring the costs down, the main ideas are the better management of two schemes and avoid the repetition of efforts”, officials from SSA said.
There are around 250 posts in RMSA including the additional project co-ordinators in the districts. For SSA, there are over 6,000 sanctioned posts but at present around 5,000 alone are filled. As per the proposal, the RMSA posts would be surrendered to the government and all the staff members will be absorbed by the SSA. This move is expected to save at least around '50 crore per year.
The centrally sponsored SSA scheme, came into effect in January 2001, with goals of universal access to education, retention of students and bridging the gender gaps. It covers children studying classes 1 to 8.
From 2010-11, the scheme is being implemented in accordance with the Right to Education (RTE) Act, which covers children between 6-14 years of age. “The SSA had achieved its major goals and currently on the extension. The central government thinks a sudden rollback would affect the school education across the country. So, it is slowly reducing the fund allocation to the scheme”, sources said.
Meanwhile, the RMSA is a new scheme which was launched only 2010-11. “So, it is asking the states to merge the old scheme with the new scheme,” they added.
RMSA scheme aims to improve the quality of teaching and learning, infrastructure in secondary education. This scheme covers mainly students classes 9 and 10. Both the schemes are imparting a range of training to the teachers and headmasters of government schools.
In 2017-18, the approved budget for the SSA scheme is '2778 crore of which the central and state government should share in a 60:40 ratio.
“But, in the last few years, the central government has not paid the salary component in the budget saying that it does not have funds. We have over 19,000 regular teachers and 16,000 part-time teachers appointed under the scheme and their salary was the major part of our budget. The centre wants the states to bear the salary of the teachers who got appointed by the SSA scheme,” sources said.
As per the school education minister K.A.Sengottaiyan’s statement, the central government has to give '2,200 crore to SSA in the last few years.
RMSA which has implemented various schemes including girls hostel, the model school in educationally backward districts and special training for teachers has the annual budget of Rs 500 crore. It has improved the infrastructure in government high and higher secondary schools in the state by building classrooms, providing labs and other equipment.
