The Gujarat High Court concluded a suo motu public interest litigation on Tuesday by stating that the efforts taken by the Gujarat government to upgrade school infrastructure “are not only satisfactory” but “almost on par with any other private schools.”
The division bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice AJ Shastri expressed satisfaction with the state’s actions and stated that the court’s apprehension now “stands allayed”.
The HC initiated the PIL on the collapse of a government primary school at Vaghalwada in Chhota Udepur that led to students attending classes at the home.
Additional secretary of the education department, Bhavesh Erda, submitted in an affidavit that in almost all of the 32,319 government schools across the state with 47,07,846 students “facilities towards the school building, drinking water, toilet for boys and girls are in place”.
However, 6,443 schools do not have a playground for which the state government submitted that it is “trying to take care of these schools gradually by finding some alternative”. “As such, it would be open for the state to take such steps for making available playgrounds for these students. The state being alive to the problems addressed by the citizens and same being attended to as evidenced from the affidavit of the additional secretary,” it said.
The court further took note of the advocate general Kamal Trivedi’s assurance that any shortfall in the infrastructure would be addressed if brought to the notice of Vidya Sameeksha Kendra, Samagra Siksha Kendra or Gujarat Council of School Education.
The court recorded that it does not “see any good ground as to why the said statement should not be accepted, particularly in the background of the statistics placed before the court clearly disclosing the steps taken by the state authorities which are not only satisfactory which is also almost on par with any other private schools.”
The court recorded that the Gujarat government has put up “strenuous efforts” by virtue of which several parameters such as net enrollment ratio, dropout ratio, pupil-to-teacher ratio, student-to-classroom ratio, etc have all improved.