PTI
New Delhi
Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) founder Abhijeet Dipke on Monday announced a nationwide campaign to improve government schools in villages, calling on parents to conduct social audits of basic facilities and sarpanches to take up the task of improving the institutions.
The campaign will be launched on August 15, with the CJP calling upon citizens, parents and village leaders to work together to address what it termed “neglect of rural educational infrastructure”.
In a video message, Dipke said he would launch the initiative from his village Hingoli in Maharashtra by approaching the village head with the request of improving the government schools there.
“The coming 15th August is our 80th Independence Day. But, if anything has been neglected or ignored the most in the last 80 years, it is the government schools in our villages,” Dipke said.
“We have made a new Parliament, a new PM house. Why have we not been able to build new schools in our villages? Do we not consider the children of farmers and labourers the future of our country?” he asked.
Dipke said village children still have to walk long distances to attend school and often find basic facilities such as drinking water and toilets unavailable.
“Even today, village children have to walk a long distance to go to school. After going there, they don’t find water or toilet facilities,” he said, highlighting the difficulties faced by girls in particular.
“I feel that on this 15th August, if we should pay attention to anything, if we should make a new start, we should start by improving our government schools,” he said.
As part of the campaign, the CJP has issued an appeal to sarpanches across the country to improve government schools in their respective villages.
Dipke said he would personally approach the village head in Hingoli, and urged other village heads to take up the initiative.
The organisation has described it as a “sarpanch challenge”, under which the CJP would publicly recognise village heads who improve their schools by sharing before-and-after photographs on its social media platforms, giving credit to the sarpanches concerned.
“We will give you credit so that after seeing you, after seeing the schools that you have improved, many other village heads also start improving schools in their villages,” Dipke said.
The CJP statement also announced a citizen-led social audit of government schools.
