The Ahmedabad Municipal School Board which presented the Rs 393.54 crore budget for 2009-10 on Tuesday drew flak for its failure to come up with any original ideas for improving the education standards. The board has relied heavily on the proposals of the Administrative Officer while enhancing the Rs 377.48 crore budget by Rs 16.06 crore. Moreover,there was no convincing explanation for the dropout of nearly 6,000 students this year. Presenting the budget,School Board chairman Manubhai Raval told media persons that the drop out was due to the Central Government-induced price rise in essential commodities and the return of rural population to their villages following improvement in water availability. The budget break-up shows 88.40 per cent spending on establishment costs and 11.60 per cent on education related activity,with the latter also including 2.96 per cent on administrative and maintenance expenditure on school board office and schools. Even as the Opposition stayed away from the briefing and walked out of the budget meet earlier in the day,Raval said the standard of education had improved in civic schools as was proved by the fact that nearly 2,100 children migrated from private schools to municipal schools during 2009-10. In a bid to contain the dropout ratio,the political wing had enhanced the AOs allocation in schemes like teaching of English (from Rs 10 lakh to 35 lakh),starting new schools (Rs 5 lakh to 5 crore),yoga training (Rs 10 lakh to 1 crore),and school libraries (Rs 60 lakh to 1 crore),he said. Allocation has also been increased for organising fairs and celebrations (Rs 10 lakh to 50 lakh),toy banks (Rs 10 lakh to 45 lakh),science labs (Rs 60 lakh to 1 crore),lunch dish (Rs 50 lakh to 2 crore),and introducing pre-primary classes (Rs 25 lakh to 1.25 crore),among others.
