North Corpn faces flak over poor condition of its schools

The opposition in the North Corporation Wednesday slammed the civic body for the “poor condition” of model schools under its jurisdiction.

During the standing committee meeting of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the opposition presented a summary report of the condition of 30 model schools in north Delhi. According to the report, at least 15 schools lack adequate number of classrooms.

The report said there are at least two schools that do not have furniture for students, while one lacks sufficient furniture and the condition in the two other is bad. All the 30 schools do not have furniture for the teaching staff. One out of 30 lacks drinking water facility.

The BJP-run civic body had, in its last year’s budget, also promised to develop ‘smart classrooms’ in the 30 schools. However, the opposition claimed that the schools even lack basic infrastructure.

“The data in the report we have presented is from the education department of the civic body. Not only infrastructure, children don’t even have books and notebooks since the new session started in April and only one pair of uniform has been distributed against the promised two,” Goel alleged.

However, the chairman of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation standing committee Mohan Bharadwaj dismissed the allegations. “The situation isn’t so bad. There is proper infrastructure in most of the schools. Two pairs of uniforms have already been provided. Some students do not have the required books, but that will be taken care of shortly,” he said.

Talking about ‘smart classrooms’, the opposition said these should have been in operation by now but work is incomplete in most of the schools. According to the ‘smart classroom’ project, students in the model schools will be taught on projectors and white boards and tablets will be provided to them.

Officials said work in 22 schools has been completed and installation of projectors in the rest will be over soon.