THIS MAY be surprising, but is a fact that nearly 250 primary schools in the district have no toilet facilities on their premises till date. Importantly, the provision of toilets at every primary school is one of the basic facilities as mentioned by the Government in its primary education programmes. However, despite spending crores of rupees under the Sampoorn Swakshta Abhiyan and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, primary schools are yet to be facilitated with toilets.
It may be mentioned here that under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, apart from making primary education compulsory, the government also provides funds for making available drinking water, toilets, buildings etc in primary schools.
Surprisingly, out of 250 primary schools without toilet facilities, 117 are girl schools. District Panchayat Adhikari, Ram Bali Maurya, said that his office had planned to construct about 1000 toilets in primary schools out of a total of 2100 schools in the district. At present the construction of 177 toilets was under way which would be completed soon.
On the other side , 200 primary schools in the district are lying closed due to shortage of teachers. According to District Primary Education Officer Dr Mukesh Kumar the department was planning to appoint special BTC trained teachers to such schools. However he ruled out closure of schools saying Shiksha Mitra were taking care of the schools where there was not a single regular teacher.