Despite studying in institutions barely 50 m from the Mandya Deputy Commissioner’s office, nearly 500 students of two government-run educational institutions lack toilets.
Students from both institutions (Government High School and Government Composite PU College) in Police Colony here have to depend on the pay-to-use toilets near the Deputy Commissioner’s office, reportedly because of a difference in opinion between the faculty of the two institutions.
The high school was established in 1984 and has around 300 students. Since its establishment in 2006, the 200-student college has had to share the school’s building.
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While the building, constructed two decades back, has separate toilets for both men and women, they were locked nearly a year ago, and neither the teachers of the school or the college lecturers can explain why. There has also been no action from the district administration.
Students from both institutions insist that the toilets have been locked for the past 14 months. “Some high school teachers who are opposed to the college sharing the school building have locked the toilets meant for students,” a lecturer of the college told The Hindu here on Saturday.
The PU students and the staff have never disturbed the high school.
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College students leave the building premises at 11.30 a.m. during weekdays to ensure that school students can use the classrooms. Likewise, college students and staff enter the premises only after 11.30 a.m. on Saturday, after the high school students finish their classes, the lecturer said.
“Even high school students are suffering because of the behaviour of some schoolteachers,” said the lecturer.
Refuting the charges against schoolteachers, headmaster of the school Chikkanage Gowda said: “The toilets were locked because of some problems in the underground drainage system.”
‘Unaware’
However, Deputy Director of Public Instruction M.D. Shivakumar has a different story. According to him, the college must make its own toilet arrangements as the existing ones are meant for high school students only. He added that he was unaware of the situation. “I will personally visit the school on Monday and open the locks,” Mr. Shivakumar said.
Lack of toilets is not the only problem being faced by the college; they have none of the basic facilities essential for any PU college, such as adequate teaching staff: the college has no lecturers for Kannada or political science. It also has no laboratory, library or even proper drinking water facilities.