As schools get ready with fresh looks and facilities to welcome students for another school term, some of them in the rural areas of the district are troubled by a space crunch, finding it hard to squeeze in more classrooms without losing playgrounds and other spaces.
At the Government High School, Chettachal, around 300 students from Classes one to 10 study in rooms earlier occupied by just LP and UP students.
Although the school, located in a mountainous area, was upgraded to high school three years ago with funds for a HS building being sanctioned under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA), the construction of the building is still in the preliminary stage.
As a result, the high school students have been making do with laboratory and library facilities suited for the younger students. Situated just around 5 km from Chettachal, the Government UP School, Vithura, has close to 1,500 students packed into just around 1.5 acres, with barely enough classrooms.
Apart from students from the Vithura grama panchayat, the school also caters to children in nearby tribal settlements, with over 90 ST students enrolling this year.
Students have also been shifting there from two unaided schools nearby, owing to the high fees charged in the latter, says L. Pushpalatha, Headmistress.
GUPS Vithura even has students coming from the Chettachal area, as it has a government higher secondary school located next to it, with better infrastructure and reputation compared to GHS Chettachal.
No room for play
While a new building being constructed here under a ₹1.5 crore project financed by the National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) might provide some relief for the deficiency of classrooms, there is still no room for a playground, with the students going to a mini-stadium at the neighbouring higher secondary school when they want to play.
A playground is missing at the Government Vocational and Higher Secondary School, Poovar, as well. The school mostly caters to children from the fishing community.
The opposition from neighbouring houses has prevented the authorities from constructing a border fence around the play area. The residents oppose the wall, as it would narrow down the lane.
To add to these woes, the play area is now completely buried under the soil and debris removed from adjacent plots where new buildings have been constructed for the higher secondary and vocational higher secondary sections.
On the bright side, the new buildings have freed up space this year in the erstwhile VHSE classrooms for UP students, who had been stuck until now in an old building with tiled roofs that leak in the rain.
Water supply
The scarcity of water is another unresolved issue at the Chettachal GHS. Although there are two wells in the school compound, these dry up in the summer and the school typically depends on water supply through tankers towards the end of the academic year in March, says A.S. Sajna, a teacher.
