The look that repels kids from school!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Dec 25: Ramshackle lower primary schools are a common scene in Assam. Not far from Adarsha Prathamik Vidyalaya sans adequate teaching staff and infrastructure at Bashistha in the city, Dakshin Ganesh gar Prathamik Vidyalaya, barely 200 metres from the Assam-Meghalaya border, is telling the same old story.

The teaching staff in the school is hoping against hopes that better days of the school will be a reality under the new dispensation at Dispur. The students, on the other, do feel that their school does not look as to how an LP school looks like. Many of them even do not want to go to the school, and the reason is not far to seek.

“Infrastructure matters much for guardians to choose schools for their wards. Let alone the guardians, even children keep complaining against what their schools lack. They want to study in Shisu Kalyan Vidyalaya that seems good when look at. Shisu Kalyan Vidyalaya, also a government LP school, is located near ours. I hope the present government will certainly come up with some concrete plans,” said Pratima th, the headmistress and a founder teacher of Ganesh gar Prathamik Vidyalaya.

The school is a housed in a kutcha structure in the form of a single hall with bamboo walls. It has been roofed with rusted corrugated iron sheets. A hilltop view of the school speaks volumes of the impact of rain and scorching heat the children have to tolerate. The single uril in the campus is also a kutcha one fenced with bamboo. The campus has no fence, a situation which is fraught with the risk of children being hit by vehicles plying on the road running adjacent to the school campus.

Set up in 1990, the LP school was provincialized in 2013. Two teachers, including the headmistress, have to teach 60 students.

“The TET teachers are in demand now. I think TET teachers will be able to impart quality education as they are the teachers of this generation. They are equipped with newer ideas. I don’t think the idea of mid-day meal is bad. Because of that, 25 to 30 students come to school with the hope of getting food to eat. After coming to school we make them sit in the class to listen to the lessons. I believe that every child should get education,” th added.