Girls hold their thirst as schools lack toilets

HYDERABAD: Even on the occasion of National Girl Child Day Tuesday, 64 per cent of school girls in the state went thirsty, just to avoid having to attend the nature’s call in the open. According to the Educational Department 2011 survey, 64 per cent of the schools in the state don’t have toilet facilities.Razia Begum, a class 9 student at Rahimpura government school at Puranapul in Hyderabad said, “I stopped drinking water during school hours though I feel thirsty, because there is no toilet facility in my school.I control when I feel like going to the bathroom and use the loo at home once I get back.” This is also the advice they give other girls, she said.The problem is not confined to school girls alone but include women teachers.K Maheshwari, a social science teacher in a government school at East Marredpally, Secunderabad, said, “I rarely drink water during school hours because there are no proper toilets.There is a token girl’s bathroom, but with a half open roof and very unclean,” she said.Though Maheshwari, an anaemic, was advised by her doctor to drink at least 3 litres of water everyday, she cannot follow the advice.Many school girls are facing a various range of problems in their overall growth and development, she said.The Right to Education Act (RTE) has put emphasizes on construction of toilets in every school in the state, but it has not come true even after three years, says R Venkata Reddy, national convener of MV Foundation.Lack of toilets is connected to the dropout rate.Due to lack of amenities for girls in rural and urban schools, 60 per cent of school girls drop out, Reddy said and added, “This system is dragging girl children towards practices of child marriage and child labour, and also affecting sex ratio in state.”