VIJAYAWADA: Over 50 per cent of the schools out of the 318 private schools in Vijayawada are sharing playground with other schools. According to the norms, in urban areas, a school should have 1,000-sqft playground within 1km radius of the school zone to avail recognition. However, the playgrounds, which many schools have arranged, are at the 3-km radius of the school.
Apart from that, 30 per cent of the schools have only indoor space instead of a playground. Due to lack of proper playgrounds, students do not have any mode of recreation and many are losing interest in sports as they need to travel long distances to reach playground and take up any activity. Class VIII student T Sairam, studying in a private school in Vijayawada, is upset with the fact that other schools have a playground in their campus, but his school does not have one.
He said, “Our school does not have any sort of playground but is equipped with a very small indoor play area for primary students. They take us to another school, which is about 2 kms away, twice a week in our school bus. Usually, we go to the ground at 3 pm based on our schedule and stay until 4.30 pm or 5pm and then go back to our school and study for an hour. During examinations or due to some other reason, majority of our sports period get cancelled. I don’t like to travel by bus and reach the playground.”
Deepak, a class VI student said, “I enjoy my sports period as it is a relaxation from the normal subjects. But I feel disappointed as I cannot practice basketball because the school we go for playing games doesn’t have a court. It’s just a plain land. We play other games than real sports.”Like Sairam and Deepak, many other students feel reluctant to share a playground with other schoolchildren or take the journey to reach the playground. Most students wish to have their own playground in their schools.
However, a majority of the schools in Vijayawada don’t have their own playgrounds. Nearly half of the schools share their playground with other schools by charging rent. The rents vary from school to school depending on the management and student strength.
“At the time of inspecting the schools, they show the ground near by their school or come up with indoor spaces. Based on that, we grant permissions. In case there is no playground facility, they should have 500 sqft indoor space equipped with play stuff. However, the school managements are manipulating the officials saying that there is a playground on a sharing basis and some even show indoor space below 500sqft. After they receive permissions, they don’t take their children to the playground as per the schedule. Instead, they restrict the children to indoor spaces. We are working on these issues and will take strict action against such schools,” said N Ravi Kumar, Deputy DEO Krishna district.