The Directorate of Education of the Government of NCT of Delhi is working sincerely towards the appeal made by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his first Independence Day speech from Red Fort of “every school should have separate toilets for girls and boys in every school. The Director Education Ms. Padmini Singla informed that the Directorate of Education of Government of NCT of Delhi has prepared an action plan to ensure full functional and properly maintained school toilets as all Delhi government schools have already separate toilets for boys and girls. In such a situation the real challenge is to provide the full functionality and proper maintenance of school toilets especially in girl schools.
She said during summer vacations, all the Head of Schools of Government of NCT of Delhi Schools were instructed to get the required repair and plumbing in all existing toilets of their schools to make them fully functional before the reopening of schools in July. To ensure this, an amount of Rs.10 crore is released in last three months (since June this year) to repair the unused toilets and make them fully functional. As a result of these efforts now around 90 percent of toilets are fully functional and remaining of some 10% toilets, which are still non functional due to different reasons, will be repaired soon, she informed.
The Director Education said even before the Prime Minister’s “clean India” call from Red Fort, the Directorate got all 1007 schools inspected within just in a one week time under the Mega Cleanliness Drive by the senior officers conducted during the week preceding the 68th Independence Day. A detailed schedule was chalked out meticulously for this purpose at a short notice and teams of careful selected officers formed to accomplish the task.
Ms. Singla said she visited more than dozen of schools in the far flung areas of Delhi, like Seema Puri, Nand Nagari and Ambedkar Nagar where majority of the living population is from lower strata of society. During such visits, one Principal in Nand Nagari area has been served Show Cause Notice for Termination of his service as most of the rooms in his schools did not have fans and tube lights in running condition. In another case, one Principal in Old Seema Puri area has been asked to explain why disciplinary proceedings for a major penalty should not be initiated against him for poor results, blocked toilets and poor maintenance of school building. The exercise has had a visible impact as the Principals have fastened their belts and are working in war mode to set right the position of basic infrastructure in their respective schools.
Ms. Singla underlined the fact that these field inspections have given insight to plan for government schools more accurately and strengthened the resolve to work with greater zeal for students who come to schools with the hope of acquiring quality education.
The quality education is not feasible without proper infrastructure necessary for students for studies. In government schools, short supply of desks for students is also a major issue to be solved in priority. On this, Ms. Singla informed that in year 2008-09, the Directorate of Education had placed an order for 25000 dual desks with the Tihar Jail authorities. In year 2009-10, the order was increased for 60000 desks and in year 2011-12 the number of order was further increased to 1,20,000 desks was. This increasing requirement of desks coincides with the constantly increasing strength of students in the Directorate. On an average, almost one lakh students get added every year to our school enrolment, she informed. However, the Tihar Authorities failed to meet the increasing demand of Directorate as the production capacity of Tihar prison factory is only 300 desks a day.
The quality education is not feasible without proper infrastructure necessary for students for studies. In government schools, short supply of desks for students is also a major issue to be solved in priority. On this, Ms. Singla informed that in year 2008-09, the Directorate of Education had placed an order for 25000 dual desks with the Tihar Jail authorities. In year 2009-10, the order was increased for 60000 desks and in year 2011-12 the number of order was further increased to 1,20,000 desks was. This increasing requirement of desks coincides with the constantly increasing strength of students in the Directorate. On an average, almost one lakh students get added every year to our school enrolment, she informed. However, the Tihar Authorities failed to meet the increasing demand of Directorate as the production capacity of Tihar prison factory is only 300 desks a day.
The Director, Education said while observing these limitations of Tihar authorities, the Directorate decided to go for open tendering with also in order to include other firms for supply of as many as one lakh dual desks. The technical bids for these tenders are to be opened on 03.09.2014. Keeping in view the constraints of the central procurement of desks, the schools have also been authorized to purchase dual desks from the Vidyalaya Kalyan Samiti funds at their own level. On an average, around six thousand desks are purchased annually by individual schools to meet the shortage, Ms. Singla added. Around forty thousand desks are repaired every year at the school level. She said that in next three months with the delivery of one lakh desks, the situation will be under control and the Directorate will be in a position to ensure the proper seating arrangements in schools for the students.
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