Telugu Society of America (TELSA)

In February this year, we went on a tour of 15 villages to acquaint ourselves with conditions at rural schools and assess the kind of help, if any, that TELSA might be able to provide for such badly needed amenities as lavatories, drinking water, school supplies and aid students in the areas of transportation, scholarships, learning aids etc., We had a particular focus in terms of toilets, especially for girls and female teachers in view of their rising numbers at these institutions.

Our visit took us through 14 districts and we visited 16 schools in 7 districts. With the exception of two which are owned and run by private managements and two others called "Ashram Schools" run by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), all institutions visited by us were high schools run by Zilla Parishads (Z.P.Schools).

Sanitation

Leaving aside the two private schools and one Z.P.School , all the schools visited lacked functioning toilets as the toilets built were in a state of disuse due to lack of water/water lines and maintenance. Often, the approach to these facilities is covered with overgrown brush and trash making them inaccessible. It was found that both students and teachers have to use open spaces to answer nature’s call and many a girl student was said to be avoiding water intake during school hours in order to minimize the need to relieve themselves. In some villages, teachers have informed us that they also follow the same practice. In cases of emergency, women teachers often seem to depend on the kindness of home-owners in the neighborhood, should they happen to have functioning toilets. In one private school, we were informed that the day we visited was a particularly bad one as the sweeper had quit after a long period of tussle with the management and the toilets were unusable on that particular day. We left the school wishing that it was for just for that day only, indeed!

In some schools where there were bore-pumps, water was still not available at the toilets as no pipelines were laid to them. In some cases pipelines could actually be seen in the toilets, but there was no water available to make them functional. Students and teachers have to carry buckets from a distance when such visits to the toilet become inescapable. Every school we visited had presented toilets in a filthy state as they were not cleaned. There were no scavengers on the staff of the schools and in some cases teachers themselves try to clean them occasionally with the help of students when water is available to be carried from either the neighborhood or from within the school premises.  In some cases, such attempts to enlist the aid of students seems to have resulted in protests from parents who regard cleaning toilets as a violation of their caste status or from youth groups (probably with political affiliations) within village who regard such attempts as a violation of laws against exploitation of child labor. In some schools, teachers contribute money to hire the village panchayat’s scavenger to have the toilets cleaned once a week or once a month.

On the whole the situation is unbearable and both teachers and students suffer due to lack of such an elementary amenity as a functioning toilet. They informed us that they raise the issue every chance they get within the councils of the appropriate authority, but to no effect.