Upgrading Delhi’s government schools

In his second stint as the education minister of Delhi, Arvinder Singh Lovely hopes to make all existing government schools in the city better, in terms of their facilities. Upgrading the school infrastructure and providing formal education to the large number of out-of-school children of migrant labourers working in the Capital are the areas he will now be focussing on.
Informs Lovely: ���Upgradation has already been initiated in a few government schools in Delhi. Besides, 200 schools, out of the total 650 schools, are being studied so that we may identify their specific needs.��� Highlighting the total cost of upgrading these schools, he says: ���For the 200-odd schools that are being studied, the cost incurred would be approximately Rs 196 crore. And although the cost may vary from school-to-school, on average we will be spending Rs 60-70 lakh on every school.���
The directorate of education (DoE) has engaged the Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) and the Public Works Department (PWD) for this upgradation, under which additional rooms will be constructed and emphasis will be placed on installing safety provisions such as fire alarms. Further, the project will cover issues such as demolishing hazardous constructions, improving drinking water and toilet facilities, refurbishing electrical systems, providing green boards in classrooms, ensuring spacious playgrounds and ensuring classrooms are well-ventilated.
Informs Rina Ray, education secretary, DoE: ���In the first phase, 200 buildings and 300 schools would be totally refurbished. Further, in the second and third phase, 200 and 250 buildings would be refurbished, respectively���. According to Ray, Rs 150 crore will be spent just for ensuring fire safety in the 650-odd schools.
Elaborating on his plans for the year ahead, Lovely says: ���We would be proposing an action plan for the next five years, which would need the chief minister���s approval, where we will focus on various issues. Like, for instance, how to bring down the dropout rate, which has already come down from 17.5% to 5.7%; how can we bring children from the red-light areas into the school system, and so on.���
According to Lovely, the action plan will also focus on the girl child and children with special needs ��� wherein an effort will be made to make schools adopt a more inclusive approach. He adds: ���On account of the Commonwealth Games a large number of labourers and migrant workers have come to the Capital and as a result, their children are out of school. So, we will also be focussing on bring these children back into the school system.��� Also, as B L Yadav, deputy director (planning), DoE, points out, 63 government schools will be upgraded to the secondary level.
Model schools:
As an extension of the Right to Education and integrated education schemes of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), 24 government schools in Delhi will be turned into ���model schools��� implementing policies regarding the mainstreaming of children with special needs.
Ray elaborates: ���In all, 12 MCD and 12 DoE schools have been randomly selected and will be turned into model schools. These schools will be totally inclusive in approach.��� These schools, she adds, will help solve problems of inclusive education through the identification of problem areas and through innovative solutions that will allow children with special needs to study in mainstream schools.
The schools have been selected depending on whether they have adequate space to ensure that they are easily ���accessible��� by all, besides being able to ensure the safety of the children.
Ray adds: ���These schools will have required infrastructure such as ramps, spacious rooms, wider doors, and so on. We are also planning to adopt the Building As a Learning Aid (Bala) model. Besides, we would have labs for the hearing-impaired, Braille books and other necessary things.��� The teachers at these schools will also undergo special training. ���They will be trained by the Rehabilitation Council of India,��� says Ray.