Conditon of schools in HP pitiable, says rights group

Shimla, Feb 24 (UNI) A Rights group today lamented the pitiable condition of schools in Himachal Pradesh with majority of them lacking basic facilities like drinking water, sanitation laboratories, libraries with teachers remaining absent during the school hours.

''Twelve teams of four people each visited 15 schools in five districts of the state on a fact finding mission and found the conditions of the schools very pitiable,'' Global Human Rights Council President Arvind Thakur said at a press conference here.

He said the sanitation facilities in each of the schools that they visited were ''very poor'' and in the absence of a regular sweeper, the conditions had turned from bad to worse.

In majority of the schools there was no provision for clean drinking water for the students, who therefore, had to pass that whole day without taking water, he said.

Mr Thakur said the absence of adequate infrastructure and teachers in majority of the schools, plus poor quality of education was affecting the future of the students.

Referring to a particular Government Senior Secondary School for Boys at Theog in Shimla district with a student strength of 700, he said one of the fact-finding teams discovered that out of a total of 29 teachers in the school, only nine were present.

The practice seemed wide-spread in the absence of any mechanism to monitor the functioning of the teachers, who continued their personal errands during school-hours.

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