CAG report detects inflated enrolment in Bihar school

New Delhi: A CAG report has revealed that the number of children enrolled in schools in four Bihar districts were inflated by the education department and surpassed the child population of the area.

The report for 2012-13 tabled in Bihar assembly said ‘test-check’ of records of four district programme officers (DPOs) revealed that enrolment figure was more than the population of children in the age group of 6-14 years.

As per the CAG report figures provided by DPOs of Sitamarhi, Khagaria, Kishanganj and Gaya, 23.03 lakh children were enrolled in schools in the districts but the population of children in the four districts was 22.18 lakh revealing that the enrolment figure was inflated by around 85,000 in these districts. According to data provided by Bihar education department, enrolment of children in schools in the state stood at 2.09 crore at the end of March 2013.

This was 96 per cent of the total 2.18 crore children population here in the age group of six to 14 years.

Accountant General (AG) (Audit) for Bihar, PK Singh said the enrolment figures were inflated as compared to actual enrolment and did not present the correct status of enrolment in the test checked districts. Test checks in Kishanganj, Nawada, Rohtas and Saran districts found that against the admission of 3,691 children altogether 5,104 children were shown as enrolled in the attendance register.

In its answer to queries by auditors, Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC), which comes under the education department, said the inflated figures were due to non-furnishing of data by many private schools.

Asked to comment, state Education Minister Brishin Patel told PTI “The discrepancy in figures is because overage and underage children study in many schools and the CAG report has not considered their numbers. It mentions figures related only to children who are in the age group of 6-14 years.” “Besides, the CAG report has considered draft census data for comparison, as the final figures are yet to come. So it is not the final picture,” he added.