Imphal, February 02: Providing cooked meals to young students studying in Government schools in the State, especially those in the hill districts is still a far cry, despite a Supreme Court order in his regard.

According to a highly placed source, although an amount of Rs 3.95 crore had been released for the first phase of the programme for providing cooked meals to the students upto Primary level, the same is yet to be implemented fully, and more so in the hill districts.

In fact, the young students studying in schools located in the hills are not even getting their due share of the rice under the Mid-day meal scheme regularly, the source said, adding that in most of the cases, the rice and other items meant for distribution among the students are siphoned off by the school authorities concerned.

The source further disclosed that the system of substitution teacher in which the teacher concerned engages a local person to take classes on his behalf and share a part of the salary is very much prevalent in the hill schools.

It is being carried out either with the patronage of the village headmen or through mutual consent.

According to the source, out of the total 4349 sanctioned posts in 142 high schools under School Education Department only 2886 posts have been filled up so far.

There are at present 1463 posts vacant for Science and Arts teachers in the high schools.

108 high schools are located in the valley while the remaining 74 are in the hill districts.

There are 864 graduate Science teachers and 1329 graduate Arts teachers in the valley schools while 227 Science graduate teachers and 488 Art graduates teachers are in the hill schools, the source said.

As for primary schools, the source said, the total sanctioned post is 5294 out of which 3385 are in the valley and the remaining 1697 are in the hills.

There are 212 posts of primary teachers still lying vacant in the hill schools, the source disclosed.

Out of the total 1206 primary schools under School Education Department, the source further informed, 985 are located in the valley and 221 others in the hills.

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