Is this RTE?
Sometimes, the plight of the students going to study at municipal schools makes one wonder what exactly does the Govt do at all when even basic amenities are not provided for?
This Jarimari Urdu School in Kurla, Mumbai has 400 students. But the state of the school is pathetic. For all the students, there are just three classrooms – 20x20 feet. There are no school benches and chairs – all students sit on the floor. There is no drinking water and power outages are so frequent that children have learnt more to live without electricity than with!
It teaches children from grades 1 to 4, with obviously three divisions from 7.30 to 12.30. Then the secondary students, from 5th to 10th study from 12.45 till 5.30pm.
What happened to the Right to Education Act (RTE) which mandates that schools should have all-weather buildings toilets, drinking water, playgrounds. At JariMari, the principal buys 5 litres of water everyday; how is that going to be enough for 400 students, let alone the staff? The school has a common toilet but roof leaks in monsoon.
It is really painful to see that in this age and time, where on one hand there are swanky and super expensive international schools coming up, the strata of society which really needs education to get out poverty are struggling like this. When will our municipal schools ever get it right? Why Govt ignores this crucial aspect so blatantly?
22nd Jan 2020 at 10:31 am