Armed with a directive of the State government not to permit schools that have failed to obtain fitness certificates to function, the education standing committee of the Kochi Corporation is looking into the structural safety of school buildings in the city.
There are 119 schools including lower and upper primary, vocational higher secondary, and higher secondary schools in the city, with about 15,000 students.
₹3.5-crore allotment
Though the education standing committee annually allots around ₹3.5 crore to the institutions, no information on the safety of the buildings reaches the committee. “The certification and inspection of the school buildings are carried out by the engineering wing of the local body,” said committee chairperson Poornima Narayan. The committee has decided to convene a meeting of the heads of educational institutions on June 6 to review the situation.
“The standing committee has the right to know about the safety aspects of the schools,” said Ms. Narayan.
