The Chief Educational Officer (CEO) of Chennai has informed the Madras High Court that there are 1,434 schools within her territorial jurisdiction, and of them, 367 did not have playgrounds. Students of schools that did not have playgrounds were utilising the nearby public playgrounds.
In a report submitted before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N. Mala, the CEO said there were 19 pre-primary, 553 primary, 178 middle, 193 high and 491 higher secondary schools in the city, including the borstal schools, tribal welfare schools and Kendriya Vidyalayas.
While all 1,434 schools in the city had toilet facilities, 21 did not have drinking water facility and 290 did not have dustbins in toilets, according to the information uploaded by individual schools on the Education Management Information System (EMIS) portal, the CEO said.
The report was filed in response to a public interest litigation petition filed by P.R. Subas Chandran in 2018 insisting upon the need for the schools to give equal importance to physical education and not to concentrate only on academics. He complained that most schools did not have playgrounds.
When the case was heard earlier this month, the first Division Bench led by the Chief Justice had directed Government Pleader (GP) P. Muthukumar to ensure that a report was filed in court listing out the availability of not only playgrounds but other basic facilities available at schools.
After taking the report filed by the Chennai CEO on record on Tuesday, the judges directed the GP to ensure a report with respect to all schools across the State was filed by next week. They wanted to know the total number of schools that lacked the basic requirement of a playground on the campus.
