BHOPAL: Nineteen thousand schools in Madhya Pradesh do not provide toilet facilities to its students. Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes countrymen take a pledge to clean India, Madhya Pradesh school education minister Paras Jain on Monday admitted that 45,000 toilets are to be constructed in schools deprived of the facility.
Briefing the media on his department’s achievements in the first year of the BJP’s third-term in the state, Paras Jain said that by June toilets will be constructed in all schools. “We need 45,000 toilets to be constructed in 19,000 schools that remain without lavatories. Our target is 47,000 toilets which mean an extra 2,000 will be constructed in schools already having the facility,” he said.
The school education department has also received instructions from the Union government about security measure in schools in the aftermath of the Peshawar Taliban attack. Paras Jain did not want to disclose the contents of the directions from the Centre but said, “We are to get more directions regarding the safety of schools from the Union government.
The state will then follow the guidelines to ensure safety of young students.” According to the minister, in the past one year 984 primary schools have been upgraded to middle schools and 2,952 posts of teachers sanctioned for them under the Sarv Siksha Abhiyan. Fifty middle schools have been upgraded to high schools and a hundred high schools elevated to higher secondary schools. “Under the School Chale Hum scheme 133.63 lakh children have been enrolled this year.
In addition 36,000 drop-outs were also enrolled. The target was to enrol 134 lakh students this year which has been achieved,” he explained. Making procedures easier for students, the state school education department launched a mobile application system through which students can apply for documents and duplicate marksheets. The government is also concerned about the use of unfair means by students during public examinations. “The department will send micro-observers in the examination centres of high schools and higher secondary from where complaints of dishonest and unfair means were reported this year,” Paras Jain said.
