Mayor visits municipal schools in surprise inspection drive

PUNE: Pimpri Chinchwad mayor Rahul Jadhav has visited around a dozen municipal primary and secondary schools in the municipal limits in his surprise inspection drive of municipal schools till now.
There are around 140 municipal primary schools across the city having around 40,000 students. The annual budget of the municipal primary education department is around Rs 100 crore but still many schools do not have basic facilities.
The civic body provides free school uniforms, shoes, books, education equipment and others to the students. But still there are complaints from citizens that adequate drinking water is not available, unclean and inadequate toilets and lack of playgrounds at many schools. As a result the number of students studying in municipal primary schools is declining annually.
Jadhav said, "Many private schools lack playgrounds and spacious area. But still people queue up to take admissions for their wards in the private schools even if they do not get any free education materials. We need to improve the education standards in municipal schools in order to attract more students. So I have begun a surprise inspection drive of municipal schools to know first hand about the problems faced by students and teachers there."
Jadhav was elected mayor on August 8 and has been elected corporator from Chikhli village which is a newly merged village in municipal limits. He is inspecting two to three municipal schools daily in the surprise inspection drive.
Giving information about one such memorable inspection visit, Jadhav said, "I inspected Saijeevan Vidyamandir in Chikhli where I studied around 30 years back. It was run by Pune Zilla Parishad as Chikhli was a village outside PCMC limits. I met my standard I class teacher who was overjoyed to see me visiting the school as a mayor."
He added, "I have been trying to develop various facilities at this school with help of PCMC after I was elected as corporator in 2012. It has spacious classrooms, large play ground and library run by 'Room to read for students. An IT company has provided four digital boards to the school for providing computer education to students. Girl students are providing special training in martial arts like karate for self-protection. A teacher has prepared a website through which the students are provided education through educational videos."
Sonali Gavhane, chairperson, education committee expressed satisfaction at the facilities available in the school. Sharmila Babar, vice-chairperson of civic education committee; Sweenal Mhetre, chairperson, women and child welfare committee, BJP corporators Kundan gaikwad, Sadhana Malekar and Ashvini Jadhav and civic education department officials were present during the inspection visit at Chikhli school.