mid-day editorial: Schools cannot fail in cleanliness

Yesterday, this paper carried an extensive report on a Marathi municipal school in Erangal village in Marve, where basic facilities are either absent or leave much to be desired. The Erangal Marathi Municipal School, on Malad's Marve Beach, has no fans or lights in classrooms. There is no headmaster and just six teachers to handle 286 students from Std I to X.

Those are just the academic part of the conditions. The rest of the infrastructure is just as bad. The toilet has no roof and the windows are uncovered, even in the monsoon. In the report, a student is quoted as saying that girls feel unsafe while using the toilet because of this.

While the Erangal Municipal School, may be an extreme case, its plight is mirrored across a number of municipal schools across the city. So many municipal schools are struggling with an acute shortage of teaching staff or making do with sub-standard teachers. This is further compounded by shoddy infrastructure. Classrooms are barely enough to accommodate students. Desks and chairs are in an abysmal condition. Hygiene is often overlooked or simply not there. Fans are absent or non-functional and many times, students have to squint at their books in the poor light in classrooms.

Hygiene in toilets and general cleanliness also leave much to be desired. Some schools, shockingly, have no toilets at all. Others have restrooms that are filthy or in a state of disrepair. This is disgraceful. At that age, children need to be taught good hygiene and basic cleanliness. The road to Swach Bharat Abhiyaan begins in schools, where lessons are learnt about the importance of clean surroundings and a good quality of life. If these are absent in school itself, youngsters will learn it is acceptable to live in a dirty environment where even basic sanitation is absent.

While one can understand that you cannot expect luxuries and frills in civic schools, a minimum standard is expected in infrastructure and academics. Let schools adhere to that and make school a pleasant, not nightmarish, experience for these students.