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Centre flags 14 Punjab schools with infra woes
The education ministry identified the schools operating in dilapidated buildings and having high enrolment through the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), the national information-management system for school education
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The Centre has turned its attention to a critical gap in school infrastructure, focusing on 2,011 government schools nationwide, including 1,680 without their own buildings and 331 schools operating from dilapidated structures.
The Union minister of education last month sought reports from all states and union territories (UTs) on how these schools are currently functioning. The education ministry identified the schools operating in dilapidated buildings and having high enrolment through the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), the national information-management system for school education. The states and UTs were also asked to share the “functioning status” of these schools along with geo-tagged photographs of buildings for a meeting on school infrastructure convened by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Among the states, the ministry sought a status report from the school authorities in Punjab regarding 10 government schools with buildings in poor condition and four others without buildings. Of the 10 schools with buildings in dilapidated condition, three are in Ludhiana, two in Amritsar, and one each in Gurdaspur, Mansa, and Bathinda. Most of them are up to senior secondary level. All these schools have student enrolment between 1,400 and 2,700. The four schools without their buildings are located in Gurdaspur, Faridkot and Hoshiarpur.
A Punjab school education department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the department has been working on the renovation and repair of all school buildings on priority for the past two years. “Punjab topped among the states in the latest edition of the Performance Grading Index, which included school infrastructure as one of the parameters, released by the education ministry two months ago,” the official said, refusing to discuss individual schools.
Among the northern states, status reports were sought from neighbouring Haryana regarding 10 schools without their own buildings and 12 others with dilapidated structures. Similar reports were asked from Jammu and Kashmir regarding 30 schools without buildings and from Himachal Pradesh for 10 schools with buildings in poor condition.
