CHITTOOR:For 375 girl students and 45 teachers, 17 of whom are women, there exist eight bathrooms and four toilets. This might look a little better when compared to other schools but the problem here is that the toilets lack proper doors and running water facility which make the toilets unhygienic and unusable.
This is the pathetic condition of the BS Kannan Government High School, which is located in the heart of the district headquarters of Chittoor town. The high school, where a total number of 650 students including 375 girls are studying from Class VI to Class X, lacks basic amenities forcing the students to use open lands and bushes for attending nature’s call.
The school, located at Darga Chowk on Palamaner Road, owns 10.5 acres of land. As boys have no toilets or bathrooms, they are forced to urinate outside in the open making the area unhygienic and becoming a
nuisance to passers-by.
The lack of basic amenities is making the school lose its students whose strength is decreasing year after year. The school, which had a strength of 2,750 students with 22 classrooms in the past, now has 650 students and 14 classrooms.
Recently, pythons crawled into the girls’ bathrooms sending shivers down their spines and forcing them away from the toilets.
“We are facing a lot of hardships due to the unhygienic condition of toilets. Due to this, the rate of dropout of girl students is increasing. We request the school management to immediately take steps for proper maintenance of toilets and bathrooms,” said B Nasirunissa, a Class 9 student of the school.
There are three government high schools and eight municipal high schools in the district headquarters and all of them face similar problem. As there are no basic amenities like running water and maintenance the toilets turn dirty and emanate smell.
The Supreme Court monitoring committee, which has recently visited some schools in the district, has observed lack of proper sanitation. It has also pointed out the lapse of Rajiv Vidya Mission (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan) in maintaining sanitation in the schools.
The district has 3,955 primary, 481 upper primary, 567 high schools, 20 Kasturba Gandhi residential schools for girls. According to a government estimate, 17,650 toilets should be constructed for 6.03 lakh students, 2.91 lakh of them girls, but only 5,005 toilets/bathrooms were built for girls.
District education officer K Samuel, speaking to Express, said the administration had taken steps to construct toilets in government and aided schools under SSA project. “As there is shortage of water, proper maintenance of toilets is difficult. The problem will be solved very soon,” he exuded confidence.