The officials of the Education Department on Saturday ensured that toilets on the premises of the Government High School and Government Composite PU College in Police Colony are reopened for students.
The toilets that were constructed in 2011-12 remained locked for the past 14 months after being in use for a while and the students had to depend on the ‘pay and use’ toilets.
The educational institutions are barely 50 meters away from the Mandya Deputy Commissioner’s office.
As many as 500 students of the two government institutions were facing problems because they did not have access to toilets. The The Hindu had highlighted the issue in an article titled “School toilets locked; no one knows why” on June 9.
In response to the article, senior officials from the Education Department, including Deputy Director of Public Instruction M.D. Shivakumar, visited the institutions and instructed the authorities concerned of the school to reopen the toilets. Students at the institutions, especially girls, alleged that the toilets were locked because of the difference of opinion among faculty members of the two institutions.
“The existing toilets are meant for high school students and the college has to build toilets for their students,” Mr. Shivakumar told The Hindu here on Saturday. According to him, the college authorities failed to keep the toilets clean and so the school teachers were forced to keep the toilets locked.
“The college officials have not taken any steps for construction of toilets for their students,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
Headmaster of the school Chikkanage Gowda said that the toilets were locked because of some problems in the underground drainage system.
The high school was established in 1984 and has 300 students. The composite PU college was established in 2006 and has 200 students.
