Central aid to Madrassas misused, says CAG report !

May 4, 2013

The state government looked away as the Central funds for providing quality education in madrassas were siphoned off, flouting norms and regulations, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has blamed.

The CAG report 2012 reprimanded the Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI) for misusing Rs.1.54 crore by paying full-time salary for part-time teachers under the Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrassas (SPQEM) in Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and Palakkad. The loss to the exchequer would have been higher, ballooning into a multi-crore fraud, had the CAG audited the implementation of the scheme at the state-level.

“The DPI had not obtained necessary clarifications and approval from GOI before making payments of teaching grant of Rs.1.54 crore to 149 part-time madrassa teachers at the rate of full timers,” the CAG commented after examining the SPQEM in the four districts.

During 2010-11, Central assistance to the tune of Rs.14.68 crore was paid to 547 madrassas in the state. These madrassas were also provided one-time Central grant for purchasing computers, books and establishment of science laboratories and assistance for on-the-job training to teachers. The Central government had released a one-time grant of Rs.713.21 lakh for this. Madrassas were given a free hand in utilising the grant, and in the selection of teachers under norms laid down by the Central government.

An amount of `42,84,000 was given away to 38 madrassas in Kannur district alone as the first instalment of teachers’ payment under SPQEM. As per the data accessed by Express, a sum of Rs.77,46,000 was disbursed among these madrassas as one-time grant for purchasing computers, books, etc. A total of 86 teachers (33 post-graduates and 53 graduates) were engaged, according to the data, in the district under the scheme in 2010-11.

Each full-time graduate teacher was to be paid salary for 12 months at the rate of Rs.6,000 and post-graduate/BEd teacher, 12,000 per month. The CAG found that an amount of Rs.3.90 crore was paid to 152 madrassas in the four districts where the audit was performed.

The Central scheme was meant for children of educationally backward Muslim minorities who attend maktabs/madrassas/darul-ulooms that engaged largely in providing religious teaching and with very little participation in the national mainstream education system. But, in Kerala, very few madrassas are working as full-time religious teaching centres and all students have access to mainstream education facilities. So, the teaching under SPQEM in Kerala, at its best, is not more than a private tuition facility along with mainstream education, funded by the Central government. The records of 108 madrassas in the four districts accessed by the CAG proved that the children there were attending national mainstream education system in general schools, and all 108 of them were functioning only part-time. “The DPI, while disbursing the assistance to madrassas, had not assessed their working hours, number of children who were learning only religious teaching and curriculum to be followed in the madrassas,” the CAG observed. “There was no mechanism in place with the DPI to ascertain whether the mainstream subjects like mathematics, science, English and computers were taught and how the time was allotted for teaching the same in madrassas.” The SPQEM envisaged a training programme to improve the pedagogical skills of teachers by SCERT or DIET.