The school plant is the nerve-centre of the educational process. If a better school programme is desired, an environment in which the class-room teacher can be creative and can improve his leaching, must be established. A good learning environment can speed up the learning process.
It will help for the all-round development of the student physical, emotional, social, cultural aesthetic and moral. In this fast-moving world, schools are to change with the responsibility for sowing the seeds of personalities who will be the pride of the nation by virtue of their knowledge, skills and altitudes.
Therefore, the school environment should be conducive to the efflorescence of the child’s personality. The school plant should be a ‘show piece’ for everybody visiting it. Emphasis will be given on beautifying the campus through students participation by having flowers, creepers and shrubs outside and mottoes and other decorations inside. The school plant should be aesthetically pleasing and therefore morally elevating.
The students are to be exposed to truth, beauty and goodness. We should make our school plants “a thing of beauty and therefore a joy for ever.” It should be a place of attraction for the students and should keep them happy with its healthy environment. ‘The school plant’ includes the school building, playground, furniture, class-room, library, hostel, apparatus and equipments etc.
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The housing of the school has to be intelligently planned and executed. It should be neither of luxury nor of poverty. Luxury brings indolence to the mind and poverty depression. India cannot afford to house schools in palatial buildings on a nation-wide scale. On the other hand thatched sheds prove costly in the long run. To begin with they may seem cheap, but repealed repairs and renewals make them quite expensive.
Artistic, neat, elegant and durable buildings should be constructed. The school, being the pupil’s residence during their formative period, should rouse in them a feeling of simplicity, smart tidiness and artistic elegance. It should be a beehive of activity and a heaven of fulfillment. Taking into consideration the importance of the school building in teaching-learning process, the following measures as recommended by the Secondary Education Commission should be considered.
“These schools should be established in villages with a fair amount of population and easily accessible to the surrounding villages. There should also be enough open ground available for playgrounds and extracurricular activities of the school. If a residential school is thought of in the rural area, care must be taken to see that sufficient ground is available for the residence of staff and pupils and for out-door games.
We have referred to the fact that the school should be a centre for the intellectual, social and physical activities of the community of the neighborhood and therefore, it is desirable to see that easy accessibility is secured and that the open area available is also adequate.”