Berhampur: The Silk City is home to many century-old schools that were built during the British era. One among them is Chacha Nehru Upgraded Upper Primary School that completed 111 years November 14, 2017.
Two headmasters of the school Dinabandhu Jena and Binod Bihari Bisoyi have won awards from the President for their work. Senior BJD member and minister Surya Narayan Patra was a student of the school.
Known as Municipal Primary School, it was built during the British era back in 1906 by the local municipality. After independence, it was renamed as Chacha Nehru Upgraded Upper Primary School.
The school which once had a good reputation in the state is being pushed towards closure for various reasons. Increasing number of English Medium schools, teachers’ crunch, lack of modern facilities are among various problems that have plagued the school.
Built in 1906, the school accommodated students till Class V in the beginning. Later, it was expanded to Class VII and now it is till Class VIII.
According to reports, from headmistress Sujata Kumari Patnaik’s time, the school accommodated over 1,200 students. However, with the demand for English medium schools increasing, the number of students kept decreasing every year.
Nowadays, people prefer to enroll their children in English mediums. This has now left the school with only 250 students out of which 150 are girls. Most of the students in the school belong to Muslim community.
Even as the school is provided with computers, the government has not appointed a computer teacher for the students. The computers lie unused as teachers have little knowledge.
On the other hand, many teacher positions are lying vacant in the school. Many problems existing in the school stands as obstacle for the development of the age-old school. As the school celebrated its 111th anniversary, the school students and teachers tried to attract the notice of the BMC to renovate it and make it one of the finest schools of the generation. PNN
