As 11 govt schools in southeast Delhi wait for new buildings, kids sweat it out in portacabins

NEW DELHI: Pinki wasn’t very happy to find that her two sons were studying in prefabricated classrooms at their Delhi government school at southeast Delhi’s Molarband.
The widowed Pinki had given up a day’s income picking up passengers in her e-rickshaw to visit the school and found her kids in less than salubrious conditions at school. This is true also of 11 Delhi government schools in the Molarband area, where over 40,000 students study. For the last four years, they have had portacabins for classrooms because the construction of new buildings still hasn’t been completed or they haven't been handed over to the institutions.

At Government Boys Senior Secondary School No.3 in Molarband, where Pinki’s sons study in classes VIII and X, the new building has no water connection and no toilets as yet. With schools finding it difficult to accommodate students in the old and decrepit building, they were housed in the prefabricated rooms. Only the toilets in the old structure are being used.
This arrangement has its setbacks. The cabins become stuffy and hot on warm days and walking to the toilets on rainy days is also problematic. “When they know our children are facing problems, couldn’t they have speeded up the work?” asked Pinki. “When it rains, there is waterlogging and the electricity connection to the portacabin has to be cut off.”
Drinking water too is a problem. Kunal, a Class IX student, said, “The water available in the school is not fit to drink. The school orders water tankers but only one comes, and that is not enough for everyone.”
Because of the long delay in completing the construction, portions of the new buildings at the 11 schools are showing wear and tear. The institutions claim to have written to the education department several times highlighting the problems caused by the delay.
The configuration of the new school buildings is also creating new problems. In most areas, the new buildings have been built serially with no boundary wall separating the schools. For instance, TOI found the senior students of GBSSS No. 2 accessing their school through the second gate of GBSSS No. 3. A teacher said, “This is fraught with risks of junior students being bullied by the old ones. They built these buildings, but forgot about basic requirements.”
Parent Anju of Basantapur village also complained about classes not being held. Her son is in Class VIII in one of the boys’ schools. “Frequently, they sit in these tin-sheet cabins but there are no classes,” she said. “If classes cannot be held, why torture the students, why not let them go home? In any case, why are they admitting so many children if there aren’t enough teachers for them?”
Hari Om Sharma, a member of the Government School Teachers’ Association, explained that while enrolment was high, many teachers’ posts were vacant. “Even with guest teachers, our needs are not met,” he said. “In a day, most teachers are allocated six periods, some seven. There are times when a teacher takes leave and others have to fill in, but even then, there are so many sections in each class.”
In a girls’ school in the area, there are 100 guest teachers among the allotted teaching staff of 125. In another school, there are 11 sections in Class VI, 13 in Class VII, 17 in Class VIII, seven in Class IX, nine in Class X and eight in Class XII. A history teacher reasoned, “With municipal corporation schools merging, our Class VI has too many students now. Our school is a parent school for two feeder municipal schools. Even otherwise, admission in Delhi government schools has increased.”
Officials of the Directorate of Education did not provide an official response to TOI’s queries. However, an official had earlier said, "We will look into all the problems and also address the shortage of teachers, with the induction soon of 2,000 teachers.”