Paradip: Students of Gholapada Primary School don’t need to look forward to holidays. For, not a single day passes when they don’t have one.
The school, located in ward number 5 of Paradip Municipality, is perhaps one of a kind not only in the state or in the country but also in the world, where students have not had classes for an entire education day (10 am to 4pm) in a year — since its inception in 2008.
In an education year, a school’s number of holidays and education days are generally fixed at 137 days and 228 days respectively. But Gholapada Primary School’s number of holidays is 365 days, courtesy nature’s fury and, of course, its own ‘building.’
It doesn’t take much to locate this unique school. Ask anyone about the school, identifying it as one where students enjoy holidays all the year round, and he would point towards the bank of the Bata river.
A thatched house constructed with bamboo strips is there to welcome the visitor. It gets submerged in the event of even a mere drizzle or a gush of the town’s drain water. Then, it takes months for its floor to dry up. Even after it is dry, students are not allowed to sit in the classes as reptiles, scorpions, frogs and insects lay siege to the school. Hence, students are made to sit under the tree in front of the school. And, as they sit in the open, if the sun is scorching, holiday is declared. It’s the same, come rain or winter. This rainy season, like the ones before, the students studying under the tree are asked to go home at the first sight of gathering clouds.
The school has 90 students reading in five classes-from Class I to Class V. There are four teachers to impart the lessons, informs headmistress Meerangini Dei.
Ask a student of the school about Mid Day Meal and he would only gape at you. After all, that all-important meal to retain students in school has never been cooked here.
The teachers bring the school attendance registers with them and take them back with them when the holiday is declared—squeaky clean as ever.
Last year the school got a toilet under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, but it is close to the Bata which is why it is lying unused.
When contacted, district project coordinator (DPC) Sapani Kumar Jena admitted the school can hardly even function for a single education day. He ascribed the poor state of affairs to a land problem. The land on which the school stands belongs to Paradip port. A school building can only be constructed after the land is handed over to the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, he added.
There are 12 schools in Paradip town under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. Besides Gholapada Primary School, there are six other such schools where education has taken a back seat, making distressed parents anxiously wonder how to give their wards an education.
PNN