The HRD Ministry reports 7% Of Classrooms in Indian Schools as Critically Dilapidated

Vinod Kakumanu
May 31, 2019, 10:50 a.m.

No less than 7 % of classrooms in Indian schools are calling for urgent restoration. Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), 2016-17 Provisional report puts the percentage of schools with desperately dilapidated infrastructure at 0.67%.

In a statement which can also be an admission of sorts, Minister of State for Human Resource Development quoted Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), 2016-17 Provisional report that puts the percentage of schools with desperately dilapidated infrastructure at 0.67%.

No less than 7 % of classrooms in Indian schools are calling for urgent restoration. This statistic came to light in a briefing of the Lok Sabha. The Minister of State for Education, Upendra Kushwaha stated the above in response to the question about the step’s government has taken to identify the hazardous buildings housing schools across the country.

According to the statement issued by the HRD Ministry the guidelines for ensuring safety and security of children had been issued to all the states and Union Territories in October 2014. The guidelines also included the directions to perfect preventive mechanisms besides directions for relief and immediate redressal in the event of any untoward incident.

It is notable that as per the byelaws of state boards, CBSE and CISCE the building safety certificate is mandatory. Such certificate is supposed to be issued by a competent authority composed of empaneled architects and engineers. As per the CBSE affiliation byelaws 2018, it has been granted that the certificate issued by the state authority will be considered as reliable and CBSE inspection committee will not burden the school with any additional infrastructural scrutiny.

In addition to the aforementioned 2014 circular calling for the safe and secure school buildings, school safety policy protocol had also been forwarded to all the states and the union territories by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in 2017. The protocol stipulates conducting of quarterly safety audits. These safety audits are to be carried out by the respective School Management Committees.

In our country where the number of schools run into millions, taking the aforementioned statistics into account, the number of hazardous rundown school buildings is significant and the number of children exposed to the hazard must run into millions. This is by all measures a critical situation resulting from administrative negligence and misallocation of resources.

It is known to us that spending on education has been curtailed by the center. In the light of such divulgences, which are reasonably suspected to be conservative at best, the rationality of planning is called into question. After all, it is the fundamental rights of the children which are compromised when their physical safety is put at risk.