In an earlier blog post this month I had put up a summarised version of an evaluation study done by the Planning Commission of India. The Planning Commission had evaluated the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. In this blog post, I am summarising their evaluation of the Mid-day meal scheme.
The Mid-day Meal Scheme was launched by the Government of India in 1995 with the objectives of:
- Increasing enrolment in primary education;
- Improving the nutritional status of students.
In September 2006, this scheme was revised to give cooked mid-day meal with 450 calories and 12 grams of protein content to all children in primary classes (I-V) in the country.
Some of the major issues are:
- Almost universal coverage of the scheme in states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh etc.
- 33 percent of the parents of the beneficiary children are illiterates.
- Although Steering –cum – Monitoring Committees have been constituted at all levels, they are not holding any regular meetings to co-ordinate and monitor the programme at the block/village level.
- Except for Tamilnadu and Kerala, in rest of the states a majority of sample schools, on an average, suffer from the unavailability and poor functional condition of kitchen sheds.
- All the states suffer from the unavailability and poor functional condition of
- store rooms.
- Except for Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, there is a serious shortage of cooks
- for CMDM in the sample schools across the country.
- Some of the sample districts in Haryana, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh have utilized less than half the funds allocated to them.
- In most of the states teachers spend about one to two hours daily on activities related to CMDM thereby reducing precious teaching time.
- Out of the 17 sample states where the data was collected, students in 9 states reported that they were involved in washing utensils.
Anirudh Burman 