Hyderabad: While the Right to Education Act required schools to build toilets for children, Telangana appears extremely poor in terms of having functional toilets for girls, only slightly better than the Northeastern states but worse than the national average.
More than one in every five schools in Telangana, or 21.2 per cent, do not have a functional girls' toilet, and 17.2 per cent do not have any toilet, which is among the worst for a major state. Only the Northeastern states perform worse than Telangana in this parameter, according to the Union education ministry’s recently released Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2021-22 report.
According to the report, 78.8 per cent of schools in Telangana, including government, government aided, private unaided, and other management schools, had a functional girls' toilet. The problem primarily affects government schools, with 70.6 per cent having functional toilets compared to 98.4 per cent in private schools.
The availability of girls' toilets in all schools, regardless of whether they are functional, is 91.5 per cent. This means that approximately 12.7 per cent of schools (91.5 minus 78.8) have toilets, but they are not functional.
Only Arunachal Pradesh (68.8), Meghalaya (69.7), Nagaland (77.1), Manipur (75.4), and Tripura (74.6) perform worse than Telangana (78.8 per cent) in availability of functional girls' toilets. Telangana is also significantly lower than the national average of 94.7 per cent, as is the other Telugu state of Andhra Pradesh, which is 96.6 per cent.
Telangana fared no better in terms of the availability of functional toilets for both girls and boys, with a figure of 82.8 per cent, implying that 17.2 per cent of schools have no toilets at all, despite the national average of 96.5 per cent. Hand washing facilities are available in approximately 88.5 percent of schools, compared to the national average of 93.6 per cent.
Officials from the school education department did not comment on Telangana's figures in the report, despite repeated attempts.
