Not ready to risk children’s lives and theirs too, teachers in the Government Higher Primary School at Gadhar village in Raichur district take classes in the open space outside the school building. For, a part of the 30-year-old crumbling school building may collapse at any time. Some rooms that appear to be stable are unusable as they begin to leak soon after the area receives good rainfall. Having no other option, the teachers decided to club the students of two or more classes in a single room and take lessons for the remaining students in the open space outside the school building.
“Ours is a higher primary school having 265 students including 139 girls studying between Class I and Class VIII. We have 12 rooms. Walls of three rooms are dangerously cracked. The roofs of other three rooms are leaking. One room is serving as staff room and other as computer room. We have clubbed students of different classes and packed them into available rooms,” G. Dodda Veeranna, a teacher serving in the school for the last 18 years, told The Hindu .
With an incomplete compound wall, stray dogs, cattle and even villagers often disturb the classes. Students are often compelled to go home for answering the call of nature and drinking water as the school lacks toilet and drinking water facilities. The recently built kitchen room for the Akshara Dasoha scheme has failed to serve its purpose as it is too small. An old room in the building is being used for the purpose.
Appeals in vain
“We are afraid of sending our children to school as the old and crumbling building may fall at any time. Authorities should look into the issue,” said Mallikarjun Gowda, a villager. Repeated requests from the teachers and villagers to SDM members, local PDO, BEO and other authorities to address the issue went in vain, he added.
Ramachandrappa Shivangi, Block Education Officer, accepted that there were 122 schools in Raichur taluk alone with cracked walls and leaking roofs.
“We submitted a list of 122 schools with similar issues to the Zilla Panchayat. Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanveer Sait, who is also Raichur in-charge Minister, has assured us that he will address this issue on priority basis. I am hopeful that higher authorities would act upon it shortly,” he said.
