Hatadihi: Risking their lives, 122 students attend classes in the dilapidated Shreedhara Nodal Upper Primary School at Barigaon village under this block in Keonjhar district.
The school has seven classes from Class I to Class VII while the school building has three rooms, besides an office room. Students of four classes are made to sit under trees.
With the onset of monsoon, the problem has worsened. On any rainy day, the students are made to sit in three classrooms. The vents in the tin and tile roof give students sitting on the drenched floor a shower. Besides, the fear of snakes and other poisonous reptiles sneaking in through cracked walls from nearby bushes looms large.
Students allege that their school does not have a boundary wall. “As we have no kitchen, mid-day meal is being prepared in our office room,” they said adding that they are also not getting pure drinking water as the only tube well delivers contaminated water.
What makes mockery of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is that the students and teachers do not have separate toilets, which has been a long standing demand.
The school’s surrounding area is overgrown with wild weed and water-logged for days after rains. The school has no electricity connection.
The locals have taken up the nagging problems with the higher authorities on many occasions, but of no avail. However, parents send their children to the school reluctantly and the students go there as they have no other option. The school makes a mockery of the aims and objectives of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, the flagship programme of the government to universalise the elementary education.
When contacted, Hatadihi Assistant Block Education Officer (ABEO) Dhaneswar Khandei said steps would soon be taken to solve the problems.
PNN