Run-up to Gunotsav: City LP school off the grid!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Feb 27: Dharandha Lower Primary School, totally off the grid, is at Chandan gar, Six Mile in Guwahati. No one knows not as to why this school is left in the lurch despite being situated in a posh area – with concrete roads, street lights, high-rise buildings and what not.

The school even does not have any kitchen for making mid-day meal. Established way back in 1989, the school was provincialized only in 2013.

Delving into the problems afflicting the school, Prafullauddin Ahmed, founder teacher and the headmaster of the school, said: “New teachers will come only if the school is properly made. Teachers should get an environment conducive for teaching. The hand pump is one that we had buried under the earth when the school was being set up. Since then we’ve been doing without any source of water. We fetch water from the nearby masjid.”

Due to nonpayment of electricity bills, the power connection to the school has been cut off. Ahmed is apprehensive of the approaching summer days. “Power bills have been pending since before the school got provincialized. We will get boiled in the coming summer,” Ahmed said.

The LP school does not have a kitchen to make mid-day meal for students. Uble to arrange a shed for the purpose the headmaster makes the arrangement of food for 50 students daily in his household kitchen.

The school has bamboo walls atop a concrete half-wall. As classroom it has only a big single room with five rows of desks and benches. Each row has three pairs of desk and bench. Students up to class V have to get themselves accommodated in this hole.

“As often as not, the students of one class keep listening to lessons of other classes. Both classes and teachings are just a show. The entire working hours is spent on tackling the students. As if to cap it all, the school lacks the adequate number of teachers. That we have no staffroom is felt the least as we are compelled to spend the entire working hour in the room in one sitting. We’re two teachers, but the number of students is 70,” Ahmed said, and added that he had to buy desks and benches on his own.  “The grant from State Government to the school is not sufficient,” he said.

Ahmed predicted that his students would not fare well in Gunotsav slated for next month. “The students forget even lessons taught recently. How come they remember lessons that had been taught in the previous years?” he said. He, however, is hopeful that the top officials going to visit his school will notice its plight and gauge the situation.