62% schools do not have toilets for girls
One-third of schools in rural areas of the state do not have provisions for toilets for girls, while another third has toilets that are either locked or unusable.
This is despite several orders by the Supreme Court over the last two years to ensure provision of toilets in all schools and a deadline of March to comply with.
According to the Annual Status of Education Report 2012, only 38 per cent of schools in rural Andhra Pradesh have toilets that can be used by girl students.
However, the current situation is better than previous years, as in 2011 only 28.1 per cent had usable toilets. In spite of the improvement, the state is still among the worst in terms of providing for its girl students.
Leaving out states from the North-East, only Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh have a lower proportion of schools providing basic amenities for girls.
The Right to Education Act mandates that basic amenities should be provid- ed to all students in all schools. The Supreme Court had in October 2011 ordered all states that provision of toilets, particularly for girls, should be ensured in all schools.
The court had noted that data suggested that lack of toilets for girls in schools discouraged parents from sending them there for education.
The overall picture also isn’t rosy. While toilets for boys were built in most of the schools in rural Andhra Pradesh, nearly half of them are unusable. About 37 per cent of the toilets are unusable while about 16 per cent schools have no toilets at all.