Appalling state of sanitation in government schools

In school I always throw the rubbish in the dustbins…but when I am outside I throw it on the road, because I don’t find a dustbin nearby,” eight-year-old Pavni Khandelwal a student of Pusa Public School tells Metrolife.

The school’s Principal, Shehnaz Zaidi claims with immense pride that her school has a new napkin dispensing machine installed recently in the toilets to enable children to dry their hands after washing. Sounds impressive.

This is a private school and places great impetus on sanitation and hygiene. The moot question is whether the children understand the importance of cleanliness and
hygiene beyond their immediate environment?

South Delhi is considered the plushest area in Delhi. However, the state of school toilets here is shocking. Government Schools (co-ed) in Nehru Place, Chittaranjan Park and Kalkaji have large hoardings and posters stating the importance of cleanliness and ‘Swachh Vidyalaya Swachh Bharat’, but the toilets in these schools are in appalling condition.
A Class XII girl Bhavna, from a government school in Nehru Place, says “if the toilets on the second floor are bad, the ones on the third floor are pathetic.”

The sweeper disowns responsibility saying, “the third floor toilets are not looked after by us”, all the while  urging Metrolife to stop looking around “and leave before the school authorities come.”

School authorities meanwhile demand “letters signed by government officials”, to
allow media to investigate the dirt within the walls of these schools.

When contacted by Metrolife, Mukesh Yadav spokesperson of South Delhi Municipal Corporation, said, “we have improved by leaps and bounds and not only because of the Swachh Bharat Campaign. We do special programs, hold rallies to teach children the importance of sanitation.”

“Toilets in SDMC schools are clean. And I am sure of that,” he claimed, adding “We have recently passed the budget for 800 new toilets. You can visit Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya and other similar schools in the SDMC area to see for yourself,”
he said.

Mridula Tandon, president of SAKSHI Centre for Information, Education and Communication says “the responsibility does not end with just making toilets. The importance of hygiene and sanitation needs to be inculcated in the children and this can only be done by creating awareness about the issue.”

While visiting a primary MCD school in Kalkaji, not mentioned by the official, Metrolife found that the teachers and workers at this school were not only reluctant but literally stood as guards to prevent Metrolife from inspecting the toilets.“Please don’t go there, they are for the children, use the toilet that the Principal uses!’’ they said.

After much trying, the reporter was able to click some photos of the toilets, the state of which would leave anyone to wonder how the children used them.

The NGO workers in the school meanwhile assured that “we are aided by Save the Children Foundation, and we are going to work on the toilets soon.’’

And how long has the NGO been working in the school? “We are here since July,’’ said the NGO member from Society for All Round Development-SARD. ‘Clean toilets’ as an issue has caught the imagination of all and sundry with its rhyming slogans and strong PR driven advertisements. But the girl child drop out rates, need for separate toilets, safe drinking water, clean toilets are not issues that have been raised with the ‘Swachh Bharat Campaign’ but have existed for the past innumerable years.

Mahatma Gandhi had once said that “a lavatory must be as clean as a drawing-room.” We still have a long way to go!