JOIN USCivic agency schools are in doldrums, say principals
Civic agencies may have asked their schools to improve safety of students after the rape of a seven-year-old girl. But principals feel it will be difficult to comply with the order given the scope of their powers.
Principals of a number of municipal schools said though they have been told to improve the environment inside their schools, it will be a tough task if councillors and officials do not change their attitude.
“We have to depend on different departments to get any work done. At times we feel helpless and powerless. Our financial powers are limited which need to be expanded urgently for running the schools efficiently,” said a principal.
Another principal, who has been in the profession for over two decades, said it was an ordeal to even carry out maintenance work of the school building. “In my school, the complaint about the building having developed a crack was lodged by my predecessor in 2001.
And no one has bothered to address the situation, despite my constant reminders,” he said. “If you look at the outer Delhi area, where this incident happened, there is an urgent need to have boundary walls all around the school for security. But that is not the case on the ground,” he said.
A seven-year-old girl was raped in a school-run by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation on March 1, following which all the three civic agencies had asked principals to improve safety of students in the schools.
The North Corporation organised a training session for teachers a few days ago. A principal said, “The councillors are hardly ever available to solve our problems. But we forge some kind of friendship with officers so that they will be sympathetic to our needs in case some problem arises.”