Holy Crap

Government schools in Hyderabad are finding it difficult to maintain bathrooms due to a cash crunch.

Government schools in Hyderabad are finding it difficult to maintain bathrooms due to a cash crunch. This prompted the Andhra Pradesh Education Secretary Chandana Khan to ask schools to nominate students to do the job. Khan, speaking at a state-level workshop on health and hygiene in government schools, said that just Rs 500 had been allocated per school every month for maintenance. She said that it was imperative that the stakeholders—students and faculty—take some steps to keep the premises clean. There are almost 72,000 government schools in AP—the number of bathrooms is almost 400,000. But most of them cannot be used, their hygiene levels are so poor. “I think students as stakeholders should form groups among themselves to keep the toilets clean,” Khan said. Her suggestion drew angry reactions, especially from parents in urban areas. Khan clarified that her intention was not to trouble students but teach them the importance of sharing responsibility: “If we can clean toilets at our homes, why not at our schools?”

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