Dept to upgrade infra in govt schools

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 21

The school education department has emphasised the need to upgrade the basic facilities at the government school in Jammu and Kashmir.

Principal Secretary, school education department, J&K, Asgar Hassan Samoon has stressed the need to bring improvement in the basic infrastructure in the government schools, which has often being ignored by the successive governments.

“We need to improve/upgrade basic school infrastructure in all schools over next few years across JKUT under Samagra Shiksha/JKUT Plan/languishng projects scheme,” Samoon tweeted on Monday.

The Tribune had carried a story in its March 17 edition regarding lack of basic facilities in government schools in the Union Territory. It had also reported that J&K had shown some improvement in providing drinking water facilities and toilets for both boys and girls in government schools, but was lagging behind in ensuring other necessary facilities such as boundary wall, playground, ramp, electricity and library for over 12 lakh students.

The data revealed that 91.30 per cent government schools in J&K had drinking water facility, while 91.91 per cent schools had toilet facility for boys and 95.34 per cent for girls. Only 30.96 percent schools have a boundary wall.

Further, only 29 per cent schools have playground to conduct physical activities. Only 26.5 per cent government schools have ramp for its disabled students, while a meagre 3.2 per cent schools have toilet facility for children with special needs. Only 28.29 per cent government schools have electricity, while 62.3 per cent schools have a library.