Deprived Schools: 9 classes crammed into 3 rooms

SUBHAKANTA NAYAK, OP

Hatadihi: More than 150 students of nine classes are forced to take lessons in just three crammed rooms at a government school in Kendujhar district, where a shortage of teachers and basic facilities is disrupting the learning process and raising safety concerns. The state government says it is spending heavily to improve education and bring about a change in rural and mining-affected areas.

However, the situation at Gopabandhu Government Upper Primary School in Baula village under Dhanurjaypur panchayat in Hatadihi block tells a different story. The school, founded in 1977 in a predominantly tribal community, has 151 pupils from the pre-primary Shishu Vatika stage to Class VIII. Only four teachers are posted there, and the three available rooms are shared by all nine classes, leaving studies badly affected. The school has no toilets, boundary wall, entrance gate or playground. Girls particularly face difficulty without toilets, teachers and parents said.

In the absence of a boundary wall, cattle and goats wander into the grounds. At night, the premises are often used as a gathering spot by anti-social elements, they added. The midday meal is cooked in a dilapidated asbestos-roofed building about 500 metres from the school, and children have to walk there to eat. The school’s proximity to Baula hill means water flows onto the ground, leaving the campus wet and muddy for much of the year. Even light rain causes waterlogging, according to teachers and parents.

Headmaster Sashi Bhusan Puhan said the school faces many problems and that he has informed the Hatadihi Block Education Officer (BEO). The school receives a government grant of about Rs 50,000 a year, which is spent on essential equipment and materials, he said.

The sum is not enough for construction work such as extra classrooms, a boundary wall, a playground, a gate, a separate kitchen and toilets, or for improving the grounds. Lakshman Mahakud, president of the school management committee, said the administration and state government must urgently intervene, including by appointing more teachers. Pramod Kumar Nayak, Hata dihi Assistant Block Education Officer (ABEO), acknowledged that the school has various problems. He said attention would be given to the matter and steps would be taken.