The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the School and Mass Education (S&ME) Secretary to take appropriate action in ensuring providing buildings to
376 schools which are operating without their own infrastructures.
The direction of the NHRC came after activist and lawyer RadhakantaTripathy lodged a petition before it alleging that 376 schools in the State do not have their own buildings while10,276 primary/ upper primary
schools out of the total 51,964 schools have just a single room for each class.
“About 30,121 primary schools and 14,135 upper primary schools in the State have a single classroom for 30 and 35 students each, respectively. As many as 6,275 teachers’ posts are lying vacant in Government high schools while there is a need of 26,266 teachers in 3,264 Government-aided high schools. Similarly, while 12,474 teachers are engaged on contract basis, posts of 1,172 Science, 1,723 Hindi, 537 Sanskrit, 684 Sports and 1,439 Art teachers’ posts are lying vacant. Besides, posts of 1,054 Science teachers’ posts in Government aided high schools are yet to be fulfilled,” the petitioner contended.
The failure of the School and Mass Education Department in ensuring school building and teachers to the school students’ amounts to serious human rights violation, Tripathy alleged.
The commission directed the Secretary to take action in this regard within eight weeks.