Mumbai: 218 Schools Fail To Meet New Standards Of Safety

Mumbai: The BMC has been denying recognition to 218 private state-board schools in the city as most of them have failed to fulfil structural safety and other norms related to school infrastructure.

For the past few months, the schools, which include some of the old and prominent institutes in the city, have been facing scrutiny as they don’t possess the mandatory certificate of recognition required under the Right to Education (RTE). The major reason for the denial of the approval is the fact that the decades-old, and, in some cases, century-old, school buildings are unable to conform to the newer standards of construction and safety, reveal school and BMC authorities.

RTE Act 2009

The RTE Act 2009 requires all privately-run schools to obtain a certificate of recognition by fulfilling various norms pertaining to teachers, school building, teaching hours, library and equipment. The state’s 2011 rules for implementing the act require schools to renew their recognition after every three years.

Of 1,064-odd privately-run state board schools under BMC’s jurisdiction, as many as 218 have been operating without the recognition certificate for the past several years, the BMC had revealed in January in response to a Right to Information filed by the Maharashtra State Student-Parent Teacher Federation (MSSPTF), a city-based organisation. However, the civic body, in a letter to the organisation, refused to categorise these schools as ‘unauthorised’ and spared them any disciplinary action.

NOC for buildings

Justifying their stance, BMC education officials said that while some of the schools may not have applied for RTE approval due to ‘lethargy’, the applications for recognition of most of the schools are stuck as they are unable to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) for their buildings, a requirement laid down by the civic body in 2017. The requirement was put in place in response to a 2004 incident of fire at a school building in Kumbakonam in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu that killed 94 children. In order to get NOC, the schools need to have an authorised building with a structurally safe and stable structure for at least five years.

“The building plans of the schools don’t match the standards laid down by the National Building Code of India and BMC. While, in the first approval cycle after the NOC compulsion, we gave recognition to schools on the condition of fulfilling the norms within six months. But since they haven’t done so, we couldn’t renew their approval,” said an official.

The schools argue that it’s unrealistic to hold them to current norms as they were built in another era. Our Lady of Health High School, built on a parcel of land leased from the Indian Navy in Sahar (Andheri East) in 1956, is one such institution. The school couldn’t renew its RTE recognition as it fell short of the infrastructure criteria.

“We don’t have a playground at school because the navy gave us a limited stretch of land on lease. The conditions being put on us are beyond our control. Fulfilling them after so many years is not possible. Also, it’s a challenge to make the necessary structural changes while the classes are going on,” said Father Michael Pinto, principal of the school.

Lack of resources to fulfil safety measures

Father Denis Gonsalves, secretary of the Archdiocesan Board of Education, which manages several old Roman Catholic schools in the city, said that the schools don’t have the resources to fulfil many of the safety measures being demanded by authorities. “While the safety measures are required, the modern fire equipment cost in lakhs. We have already spent around Rs2 crore on the repairs of school buildings. The schools don’t receive any help from the government other than salary grants. Perhaps the government could provide aid for safety equipment,” he said.

Mindful of the predicament of these schools, the civic body has so far refused to take any action against them as demanded by the activists.

However, Prabhat Rahangdale, former chief of Mumbai Fire Brigade, said that while the older schools can’t be expected to meet all the latest safety requirements or make major structural changes, they can make several smaller tweaks to make their buildings safer to the students.

“There are innovative solutions available for schools to adopt. For example, many of them may not be able to install a wet riser due to a lack of space to build a tank on the ground, but they can install a dry riser so that, in the event there’s a fire, firefighters can connect the water supply to it. They can use fire-resistant wood for furniture, which may comprise on the aesthetics, but will be safer,” he said.

“The schools are not adopting these measures due to their lethargy. They can’t make excuses about the norms. Safety has to be the paramount concern,” Rahangdale added.

The activists believe that by not insisting on recognition the authorities are letting the schools get away with violating other norms too. “If there’s an issue with compliance with building requirements, why was BMC silent all these years? It should have conveyed these problems to the state government so that a resolution could be found," said Nitin Dalvi from MSSPTF.