Environmental Assessment Survey of School Building Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mission Gujarat State Annexure-VI

Background for Environmental Assessment School is a specialized environment for teaching-learning. SSA has three primary goals: –Access and retention (of all children to education) –Equity (in education of gender, caste, religion, ethnic group, CWSN) –Quality (in education) Since substantial investment is made in creating the built environment (atleast 33% of SSA budget), it is important to ensure that this environment is addressing these three goals adequately.

Need for Environmental Assessment The need of this assessment is in the backdrop of these goals. Specifically, it is to: –Ascertain that the school is located at appropriate & suitable place. –Ascertain that the campus of school have sufficient space for school infrastructure facilities, playground, parking, future expansion etc. –Ensure that the design of school provide learning environment. –Ascertain that the school building is aesthetically oriented so that it provide proper ventilation, cross ventilation, sunlight etc. and avoid glare on black board. –Know whether school environment is child friendly. –Identify gaps in environmental management.

Components for Environmental Assessment General Information of school Building Site location & sensibility Site planning Building design Learning environment, free of barriers Energy efficient & environment friendly building design & construction. Teaching-learning environment Physical built-environment Safe drinking water & sanitation facilities Health & hygiene of children Technical support staff Operation & maintenance Training & orientation Best practices

Strategy to Mitigate Environmental issues Identify through survey the status of built environment. Compare the status with standard norms and identify areas of deficiencies. Address environment concerns during implementation of project. Manuals / documents / instructions issued from time to time helps to mitigate environmental issue. Experience sharing with other district / states through workshops and documentation. Arranging training program for community members including masons, teachers and engineers and providing detail guidelines to them in the form of community construction manual pertaining to mitigation of environmental issues.

Format for Environmental Assessment Survey

Advantage of Environment Assessment Survey Assess and plan for better quality of school environment Provide better planning for future construction. Better use of available existing facilities. Use of local materials and skills to reduce cost of construction. Buildings can be designed to address most of the broad environmental concerns. To verify if the available facility are as per standards and norms If there are any issues related to environment, that can be addressed to make them child / environment friendly.

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