By Yogima Sharma, ET Bureau |
5 Nov, 2014
NEW DELHI: In what could be a
pretty demanding Children's Day pledge this year, the Narendra Modi government
has directed all schools under its ambit to ensure that morning assembly in
government schools focus on cleanliness and hygiene, and urge students to keep
the statue in their school, if any, clean, besides clean their classrooms,
laboratories, libraries, playground, toilets, drinking water areas and school
gardens.
In a recent directive to
Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, the department of
school education and literacy under the ministry of human resource and
development, has asked all schools to ensure that children discuss cleanliness
and hygiene in the school assembly every day, and that each school forms a
children's cabinet to supervise and monitor the cleanliness initiative.
The move is in sync with the
government's vision of Clean India by 2019, and aims to ensure that all schools
have separate toilets for girls and boys by July 2015. The schools that will
have to follow the directive include 1092 Kendriya Vidyalas under the Kendriya
Vidyalaya Sangathan and 598 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalas under the Navodaya
Vidyalaya Samiti, impacting nearly 15 lakh students in government schools
across the country.
"The government of India
has directed its own schools through the Kendriya Vidyalas and the Navodya
Vidyalas to celebrate the Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan by taking up a programme for
cleanliness in schools on a roundthe-year basis," the government has
informed the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, which is overseeing the
implementation of the project.
"The Kendriya Vidyalaya
Sangathan and the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti have been asked to take up, inter
alia, the following activities that include talk by a few children on different
aspects of cleanliness in the school assembly every day, especially with
respect to sayings and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi on cleanliness and
hygiene," the note sent by the department of education to the implementing
ministry said.
Besides, the department of
education has also directed these schools to continue with the Swachh Vidyalaya
Abhiyan beyond October 31, 2014, by organising film shows, model activities on
hygiene, periodic essay/painting and other competition, role plays, etc., to
reassert the message of Swachh Bharat-Swachh Vidyalaya.
Justifying the decision
that's expected to impact the regular course of teaching in these schools, the
note said, "In collaboration with the state governments, we are making
efforts to inculcate the spirit of hygiene, cleanliness and aversion to
unhygienic conditions in all children from the very initial years of their
school itself."
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan,
launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 2, involves an investment
of Rs 1,96,009 crore to construct 12 crore toilets across the country. The
mission will culminate on October 2, 2019, which will mark the 150th birth
anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
