PAISA Project

Tracking School Grants in Nalanda District

A Joint Study carried out by Accountability Initiative, NIPFP and

ASER Centre

PAISA Project Overview

• Basic Objective: How money is spent in CSS• How allocations happen – Annual Work Plan• How much is released by Centre and States• How much is spent by State societies• How money moves down the chain (Centre-

State-District-Block-Service Provider)• How much reaches the delivery point and when• How much is spent and when• Can allocations, fund flow and expenditure be

made more efficient

Nalanda Pilot Study

• Sample of 100 schools• 50 randomly chosen schools from the whole

district• Additional 50 which are nearest to the first 50

schools (“neighbourhood schools”)• Carried out on March 25 – 26, just before the

end of the financial year• Questions relating to school infrastructure,

enrolment, teachers, school grants and “one-lakh” question

School Infrastructure is old…

Years of School Operation

4

0

8

17

21

28

22

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

< 10 10 - 20 20 - 30 30 - 40 40 - 50 50 - 60 >60

Nu

mb

er

of

Sc

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ols

Maintenance and repair expenditure will be significant in order to improve the quality of school infrastructure

“Projected requirement of 3 lakh additional classrooms out of which only 61 thousand has been completed; SSA guidelines encouraged openingnew schools rather than expanding existing ones” (State Project Director, Bihar)

PTR is over 40 in more than 90% of schools

7

2522

15

119

2

9

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

20-40 40-60 60-80 80-100 100-120 120-140 140-160 >160

No

of s

cho

ols

Pupil - Teacher Ratio

Significant increase expected in recurring expenditure on teacher salaries and training if PTR target of 40 is to be achieved.

Bihar govt has appointed nearly 2 lakh new teachers. At the same time, 15 lakh out of school children have been brought into the school system

Case Study: A Tale of Two Schools

Upper Primary School MaghraEstablished: 19391400 Students; 16 Classrooms; 19 Teachers;

New Primary School KharjamaEstablished: 2007108 Students; 3 Classrooms; 2 Teachers;

Normative Grants under UEE Program

School

Infrastructure Teachers School Maintenance

Classrooms: Rs 2,54,000 per additional classroom in UP and UPS both

Repair: Rs 75,000 for major repair in both PS and UPS

TLM: Rs 500 per teacher per annum in PS and UPS both

School Development Grant (SDG): Rs 5,000 per year per PS and Rs 7,000 per year per UPS

School Maintenance Grant (SMG): Rs 5,000 per year upto 3 classrooms; maximum of Rs 10,000 for more than 3 classrooms

Furniture: Rs 500 per child as a one time grant only for UPS which started before 2001

Tale of Two Schools – Moral of the Story

Grants ReceivedUEE Norms

Maghra Upper primary : Std 1 to

8

KharjanaNew

primary: Std 1 to 5

School Maintenance Grant

More than 3 classrooms:10000;

otherwise 5000

10000 5000

School Development Grant

Upper Primary: 7000

Primary: 5000

 7000 5000

 TLM grant to teachers500 per teacher

9500 1000

Total  26500  11000Grants per student 19 101Grants per student (without Teacher Grant)

12 93

Per Child Grant Ratio

With Teacher Grant 1: 5.3

Without Teacher Grant 1: 7.75

Following the money trail…….

Annual Work Plan

Approval of Allocation

Release of Funds

Expen-diture

Spillover

The first step is to unbundle the procedure of planning, allocation, release and expenditure of funds devolved through the scheme. The timeline of

the respective activities is also critical – delay in drawing up the plan leads to delays in activities down the chain, and consequently inefficiency

in expenditure at the level of the service provider

Understanding differences in regional performance

For our study, we chose Bihar since it shows weakness in both the performance parameters. Nearly 30% of funds released was not utilized, the plan size was 50% more than the actual expenditure

Resource Mapping Tool

I. Basic School Information

II. Teacher Information

District Block Panchayat Name of School

Type of School(p/up) Year of Establishment

DISE Code

Classrooms

New Classrooms

Repairs (April 07 to March 09)

Total Enrolment(b/g/t)

Total Children attending (b/g/t)

Teachers Drinking water (y/n)

Toilet (y/n)

Functional Toilet (y/n)

Girl’s Toilet (y/n)

Functional Girl’s Toilet (y/n)

Enrollment Std 1 Std 2 Std 3 Std 4 Std 5 Std 6 Std 7 Std 8

Attendance Std 1 Std 2 Std 3 Std 4 Std 5 Std 6 Std 7 Std 8

Name of Teacher

Designation When appointed?

Years in present school?

Qualifications What was your last month’s salary?

No. of days training (April 08 to March 09)

When? Where?

Teacher 1Teacher 2………………

III. Grant Information

Type Receipts (Month) Expenditure (Month) If unspent, why? (Provide codes)

Whether sufficient(Yes/No)?

If not, what amount?When? How Much? When? How Much?

ClassroomMajor RepairSchool GrantMaintenance GrantTeacher GrantFurniture GrantGirl’s Toilet

Code: 1. money reached late; 2. no information on money transfer; 3. difficulty in withdrawing money from bank account; 4. no knowledge of type of grant for which money is transferred; 5. others (specify______________________________________)

IV. One Lakh Question“If school is given one lakh rupees, what would you spend that money on?”Type How Much ? How would you spend it?TextbooksClassroomsTeachersComputersLearning MaterialsFurnitureGirl’s ToiletBoundary WallAny other:

Schools Reporting Grants

SSA Grants

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

SDG SMG TLM

pe

rce

nta

ge

Receiving

Spending

Insuff icient

Receiving : Schools that have received SSA grants until 26th March, 2009Spending : Out of those who have received grants, schools that have spentInsufficient: In respondent (mostly headmaster) opinion, whether grant amount sufficient for the purpose or not

School Development Grant - Receipt and Expenditure

10.915.2

58.7

80.4

97.8 100

0 2.2 4.4

15.3

52.3

100

0

10

2030

40

50

60

7080

90

100

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

Cu

mu

lati

ve %

Received

Spent

Top line: Timeline of grants receivedBottom line: Timeline of grants spent

Grants transferred through cheque from District to Block to SchoolEarliest transfer recorded in October

School Maintenance Grant - Receipt and Expenditure

11.1

20.0

62.2

82.2

95.5100

0.0 0.06.7

20.0

53.3

100

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

Cu

mu

lati

ve %

Received

Spent

First SMG expenditure reported in December

80% report expenditure between January and March

Teaching Learning Material - Receipt and Expenditure

11.116.7

55.6

79.7

96.4100

0 1.9

13.0

24.1

68.5

100

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

Cu

mu

lati

ve %

Received

Spent

Similar receipt pattern, but slightly better expenditure timeline

TLM is spent at the discretion of the teachers and Headmaster

Difference with SDG and SMG maybe due to easier spending norms

Systemic Inefficiencies: Reason why grants are unutilized

Reason for not spending

SDG SMG TLM

Number % Number % Number %

Lack of Time 12 57.14 16 39.02 10 45.45

No Information 2 9.52 2 4.88 2 9.09 Difficulty in

withdrawing money 5 23.81 6 14.63 5 22.73 Administrative and

VSS Problems 2 9.52 17 41.46 5 22.73

Total 21 100 41 100 22 100

VSS: Vidyalay Shiksha Samiti – Community groups set up under SSA to monitor civil works, grants and teacher presence, identify out-of-school children, and organize mid-day meals

Administrative problems included teacher absence due to training, deputation for examination duties and updating voter list

Responses to “One-Lakh Question”

13

52

68

34

42 42

19

41

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Boundarywall

Girls toilet Furniture Studymaterials

Computers Teachers Rooms Subjectbooks

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Type of Expenditure in One-Lakh Question

Headmasters/Senior Teachers were asked about the problems faced by the school. Theywere then given a hypothetical situation where the school gets a grant of one-lakh rupees.Investigators were asked to probe the question and get a combination of two or more categories. Each expenditure had to be backed by unit cost calculation. For example, if schools asked for furniture, cost of each desk, chair or bench had to be stated. This question was asked to ascertain the real need of the school vis-à-vis the SSA grants

Summary of amount asked for by Schools in different categories

02

0,0

00

40,0

00

60,0

00

80,0

00

100

00

0

Subject Books Rooms

Teachers ComputerStudy Material FurnitureGirls Toilet School Boundary

Lessons Learnt

• What works?– Good sampling strategy– Repeated pilots of survey tool– Background research on the sector to identify the PETS issue– Highlighting interesting case studies– Simple graphs, not too many cross-tabulations– Clear advocacy agenda

• What doesn’t work?– Complicated survey tool– Investigators without local knowledge/contacts– Lag between collection, analysis and dissemination– Only critique, no suggestion to make things better