On Monday (8th April), the Delhi High Court came down heavily on the Delhi government’s Education Department over the lack of basic facilities like textbooks, notebooks, furniture, and the shortage of classrooms in Aam Aadmi Party government-run schools in Delhi. Reprimanding the CM Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government for its negligence, the court said that the Delhi government is responsible for jails like Tihar getting overcrowded since schools are not functioning properly.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora took cognisance of a report submitted by advocate Ashok Agarwal representing petitioner NGO ‘Social Jurist, A Civil Rights Group’, which had been asked by the court to visit the district’s schools in the previous hearing.
The schools in question are GGSSS Khajoori Khas, GGSSS East Gokal Pur, SKV C-1 Yamuna Vihar, SKV Khajoori Khas, GGSSS Sonia Vihar, newly constructed SKV Sriram Colony Khajoori Khas, GGSSS Bhajanpura, GGSSS Dayalpur, GGSSS Sabhapur and SKV Khader Badarpur.
“You are the secretary. You should have known all this. Why do I have to call you? You should be going on ground level on your own. That is your job… Your job is affecting lives of young children. They are in charge of education. You are not supposed to just publish announcements in newspapers that schools are hunky dory. There are 144 children in one classroom… This is very sad state of affairs,” the bench said.
“Problem is no senior functionary’s child is studying in these schools, therefore, you don’t get any feedback… No wonder Delhi jails are full. The capacity of Tihar is 10,000, but it has 23,000 inmates. This is because schools are not functioning. Do you understand the correlation?” the bench added.
Agarwal said that one of the district’s schools GGSSS Bhajanpura was run in a tin building. Here, around 1800 girls and 1800 boys study in morning and evening shifts respectively. Moreover, in SKV C-1 Block Yamuna Vihar, Agarwal said that two sections are often merged in a single classroom due to a serious shortage of classrooms. This is a double shift school where around 5000 to 6000 girl students study in the morning shift and a similar number of boys in the afternoon shift.
The court stated that the authorities’ “lack of planning” resulted in “apathy” among the students for school, and that accountability must be fixed for the officials. It further questioned how children were supposed to study in a tin building during the summer heat.
The bench also stated verbally that broken furniture in school classrooms should be repaired and maintained on a regular basis, as it was not broken “yesterday”. According to the report submitted by Ashok Agarwal, due to a lack of classrooms, children from two sections have to sit together in the same classroom, where one section is taught one subject by a teacher and the other section is taught a completely different subject by another teacher.
The bench, then asked the senior official, “Did you take any action against your officers? You have to take action against your junior officers. Why aren’t they telling you what is happening at the ground level? We should not have to call you to court and tell you, you must know. Now you are confirming the facts in the report.”
The court directed the Secretary (Education) to file a detailed affidavit within a week and listed the matter for 23rd April.
“The Secretary (Education) assures and undertakes to the court that he will take steps to drastically improve the situation in a time-bound manner. He assures this court that there is no shortage of funds. He states that books, furniture, and writing materials shall be provided to all the students. Let a detailed affidavit be filed by the Secretary to the report. The secretary shall also fix the responsibility on the officials who have been remiss in performing their duties,” the bench said in its order.