State ranks lowest in drinking water provision
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, April 28 2012: Manipur has scored lowest among North East States in providing drinking water to students and separate toilet facility to girl students at schools.

According to the provisional Annual Status of Education Report (ASER Rural) 2011 for North East States released today at ICM, only 6.8 per cent of the State students enjoy drinking water facility in their schools while 10.5 per cent of the schools have separate toilets for girl students.

Mizoram has scored best with 71 per cent of the students of the State enjoying safe drinking water in their schools.

Nagaland has highest number of separate toilets for girl schools with 89.7 per cent of the schools providing the facility.

It is mentioned in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 that safe drinking water and separate toilet facilities must be provided in the schools.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura scored 58.1 per cent, 68.6 per cent, 6.8 per cent, 9.9 per cent, 71 per cent, 23.4 per cent, 67.6 per cent and 40.2 per cent respectively in terms of providing drinking water.

In Arunachal Pradesh, out of the total 27.2 per cent of the schools providing toilet, 19.2 per cent of the schools have separate toilets for girls.

In Assam, 36.8 per cent of the schools have toilets and 27.4 per cent have separate toilets for girls.

In Manipur, 35 per cent of the total schools have toilets while only 15.3 per cent of the schools have toilets for girls.

In Meghalaya, 24.4 per cent of the schools have toilets while 18.6 per cent schools have separate facility for girls.

In Mizoram, 52.1 pc of the schools have toilets while 33.1 per cent of the schools have separate toilets for girls.

In Nagaland, 49.7 per cent of the schools have separate toilet facility for girls out of its 60 per cent of schools which have toilets.

In Sikkim, 31.6 per cent of the schools have toilets while 27.8 per cent of the schools have separate facility for the girls.

In Tripura, 30 per cent of the schools have toilets and 21.9 per cent of the schools have separate toilets for girls.

ASER (Rural) has been being brought out since 2005.Survey was conducted in all the districts, except Senapati, of the State for the preparation of the report.

Speaking at the report releasing function, Ashok Mutum of ASER Centre, New Delhi, said that the objective of ASER was to find out the rate of attendance of children in schools at the age group of 5 to 16 years and mode of teaching.

It was also to assess whether the students are getting the facilities provided by the Government through Right to Education Act.

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