The Times of India    30.07.2012

North civic schools lack blackboards, water and toilet facilities

 The municipal schools under North corporation are running without blackboards in classrooms and adequate water and toilet facilities, officials in the Education department said. The schools reopened on July 9.

Of the 266 blackboards that need repairs, work on 106 is yet to start, officials said.Earlier this month, Chairperson for Education department Rekha Gupta had told the officials to get the work completed in a month, but till now nothing has moved.

“I was shocked to see the blackboards in the schools. What will teachers do without blackboards? As it is there are more students and less teachers in our schools,” Gupta said.

The records show that toilets, too, have been neglected by the Education department. Of the 306 toilets that need repairs, work on 139 is yet to start and only 89 have been completed.

“How can you not have clean toilets and water facility for students who are between the ages of 5 and 10 years? What will they do when they need to use the toilet? It is one of the reasons why students do not come to school,” a councillor said.

Many school buildings also need repairs with regard to flooring, roof, windows, main gate and boundary walls. Many students are yet to get their textbooks and notebooks.

Of 124 boundary walls that need to be constructed, only 48 have been finished and of 96 main gates that need to be put up, only 56 have been installed.

Only 87 of the 394 schools got a new coat of paint. “I have written to the commissioner asking him to intervene. The schools have started, and if students do not have books, toilets, safe building to study in, then we and officials have failed the objective of RTE,” Gupta said.