New Delhi: A children’s body has written to Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna saying that the immediate closure of schools in and around Delhi due to the region’s poor air quality deprived many children of their rights, including their rights to education and nutrition.
“We have a humble request: Please do not see school closures as a complete response and simple solution to natural or manmade disasters,” the letter signed by National Inclusive Children’s Parliament (NICP) president Nikki read.
Schools were not only places where children obtain education but also receive nutritious food under the mid-day meal scheme, experience a safe environment to play in amid pollution outdoors and socialise with friends, the NICP said.
It noted that all of these are entitlements children have under the constitution or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India has ratified.
The NICP is a program of the PRATYeK child rights NGO’s ‘NINEISMINE’ campaign. Children from neighbourhood-level parliaments across 100 Lok Sabha seats formed to discuss local issues are elected to the NICP’s state-level and national-level parliaments, which hold monthly online meetings to discuss state, national and global children’s issues.
Regarding mid-day meals provided in school, the NICP said it is especially important for children from underprivileged backgrounds, adding that it is the first meal that some children have in their day and the only meal for others still.
“When schools were closed, some of us missed out on these meals and went to bed hungry,” the NICP’s letter said, adding that some children also went without adequate food on regular non-school days.
“This is tough for children, especially when so many of us are underweight, stunted or malnourished, as shown by the NFHS-5 [National Family Health Survey] data,” it said.
Conducted between 2019 and 2021, the survey found that 36% of children under five were stunted, 19% were wasted and 32% were underweight.
The NICP recommended in light of children depending on mid-day meals that rations be provided to the families of eligible children when schools are closed or functioning in hybrid mode.
It also suggested that mid-day meals also be provided to children when schools are closed for reasons other than hazardous pollution levels, such as holidays, pandemics and heat- and cold-wave days.
In its recommendations to the Supreme Court the NICP also suggested that schools be developed as “day boarding facilities and holiday activity hubs to provide consistent access to food, safety and holistic growth opportunities”, particularly when schools go on break.
The Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas, also known as the CAQM, ordered the closure of schools in Delhi and some adjacent districts last month in light of the poor air quality in the region.
However, it relaxed restrictions applying to educational institutes on November 25 and directed that they function in hybrid mode, a day after the Supreme Court noted that school closures were depriving students of mid-day meals and that a “large number of students” did not have the facilities to attend school entirely online.
“The residences of many students do not have air purifiers, and therefore, there may not be any difference between the children sitting at home and the children attending school,” the top court had also said.
