Human Resource Mismanagement

Editorial:-
Human resource management at the Department of Human Resource Development has always confounded. While one can appreciate that the staffing of 530 government schools can be a complicated task due to which some oversights could happen, the consistent irresponsibility with which HRDD manages schools, leads one to believe that the condition is chronic. For those who suspect that the mismanagement was due to an absence of directives or clear guidelines, the latest Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Social, Economic, Revenue and General Sectors for the year ended March 2013, provides some clarifications. In a short comment on “irregular expenditure” by the HRDD, the CAG auditors have unraveled the situation.
It appears the HRDD has been equipped with a very clear “Manpower Management Guidelines”, a document put together after the 2009-10 embarrassment and shock over the gross imbalance in how teachers are deployed to schools. The guidelines were issued in February 2010 and this document, as per the CAG Report, very clearly enumerated teacher strength against each school. What one has then is a very specific strength determination for government schools. But this was always known even if not clearly spelled out, and it was clearly a disinterest in following human resource management prescriptions that was ailing education in government schools. How can this be corrected? Apparently, the “guidelines” had a prescription for this as well and while stressing that teacher strength numbers be strictly adhered to, it reiterated that excess staffing not be allowed under any circumstance. An interesting clause was included to discourage over staffing and the “bounden duty” was placed on Heads of Schools and Drawing and Disbursing Officers who were ordered to ensure that the salary of “non-existent” or “excess” teachers over and above the prescribed strength were not issued. In case the officers did not hold-back such salaries, the same was to be realized from their monthly salary. There were two ways that condition could have worked – one, the ‘excess’ teachers, when they did not receive their salary and learned why, would have sought redeployment to understaffed schools so that they could receive their salaries, and two, the Heads of schools and the drawing and disbursing officers, when they learned that they were paying for the excess staff from their own pockets, would have enforced the rules instead of ignoring the violations. But then, it is rarely the efficacy of guidelines or rules and almost always an endemic disinterest that comprises delivery. Should the prescribed rules be endorsed, a clutch of heads of schools and drawing and disbursing officers at 254 schools [out of 530] owe the state exchequer Rs. 6.48 crores for having continued to issue salaries to excess staff. As per the CAG Report, as of February 2013, there were 648 excess teachers in 254 schools at a time when there was a shortage of 198 teachers at a sidelined segment of 78 government schools. This shortfall could have been easily ‘adjusted’ even without having to resort to any drastic measures like withholding of salaries or deductions; provided the rights of children to receive proper education were more respected.
It is obvious that guidelines, rules, directions and orders, while necessary, are not enough. For effective administration and proper delivery, the priorities will have to change from dishing out favours to delivering on chalked out responsibilities. Fixing accountability is not always the answer, especially not when compromises have become the norm, what could work better would a reintroduction to job descriptions and an inspiration to perform. Start rewarding merit and this reality could be quickly achieved. Now imagine – if even with such sloppiness, Sikkim can rank among the top-5 performing states in the country when it comes to elementary education, what levels it could achieve if it got its act even better together?