The latest findings from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) lay bare the ongoing misuse of public education funds, particularly in the student meal and support programs. The OAG’s 62nd Annual Report for FY 2023/24 exposes how 124 local governments spent nearly Rs 2.8 billion on student meals without keeping any records of attendance. This breach undermines both the spirit and the function of the midday meal program that was introduced to encourage student retention and lower the number of classroom absentees in community or public schools. Launched two decades ago, the midday meal initiative was intended to support children in grades 1 to 5 by providing food worth Rs 15 per child per day. It was meant to address hunger and learning disruption in primary school classrooms simultaneously. But when funds are released without confirming whether the meals reached any students at all, the purpose turned out to be a failure. The same frustrating trends can be witnessed in other support programs, such as sanitary pad purchases, scholarships granted beyond actual student numbers, and teacher salaries disbursed without validating payroll records.
Spending nearly Rs 280 million without attendance and Rs 32.5 million extra on salaries that lacked verification are not acts of carelessness but of misusing public education funds. It reflects a deliberate lack of internal control and a disregard for public interest. Meanwhile, the distribution of sanitary pads worth Rs 98.75 million never reached the girls they were meant for. In a country where young girls are already at risk of dropping out due to menstrual health stigma and lack of hygiene facilities, depriving them of promised support is a gross disservice. Similarly, the Rs 36.27 million spent on textbooks for students who don't exist in the Education Management Information System (EMIS) raises questions over the very reliability of data used in public education planning. The roots of this misuse are mainly due to a lack of enforcement and the absence of a monitoring culture. Regulatory clauses like Rule 126(2) of the Education Regulations and Section 9 of the Intergovernmental Fiscal Arrangement Act are being bypassed. Local governments have spent Rs 2.516 billion to pay teachers, which was not done based on the approved positions. That means public funds were paid to unauthorized individuals or for posts that are not there. To address this, annual reports reminding of such malpractices from the Auditor General will not suffice. Financial misuse in the name of children's education must be investigated in detail. Each disbursement made without validation should be audited afresh, and the officials responsible must be suspended and prosecuted.
Stopping education fund leakage through the midday meal program and other education support programs demands strict monitoring of the attendance of students and teachers, transparency in the use of such funds, well-maintained education data systems, and streamlining of budget allocations. The midday meal program and other programs’ continuity must be carried out with audit clearance. Grants should not be provided without scrutinizing schools’ compliance. To stop such anomalies from taking place, civil society groups and parents' associations must also be included in the role of monitoring because misusing education funds aimed at feeding children to support their learning can frustrate parents and students from enrolling. The rot is likely to continue if these deliberate thefts of education funds are not checked fully and perpetrators, who include teachers, administrators in the education sector, and a few officials at the local level, are not handed over for punishment.