Children sit by a muddy road behind the RTO office in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district. Vehicles speed by or stray dogs loiter around them, barking.
They came to learn at a school set up by the government, but the failure of the administration to provide them a building meant they have to sit under open sky by the roadside, distracted and endangered all the time.
Sanctioned in 2013, the ward 5 school is the only one that caters to children in the area of the district headquarters.
As per details available, the school used to be run out of a rented room recently, but due to the heat, the students were moved out.
Officials said they are making efforts to house the children under a roof, but little seems to have been done on ground.
School principal Sukhlal Pathak told HT that he had joined just a month back.
“There are two teachers and 41 school children in this primary school. The school has no building of its own. So wherever we find place, we conduct our school at that place,” he said.
Pathak said he and his predecessor Ram Prakash Bajpai had informed the concerned officials.
“We got assurances but nothing has materialised yet. We fear for the lives of students here as vehicles pass at high speed on this road,” he said.
Class 4 student Asha said they get scared when a speedy vehicle passes by.
District programme coordinator in the education department, HS Tripathi said he too had joined recently — a few months back.
“I am working actively to improve condition of school here. The school has a room on rent to conduct the classes, but it seems due to heat they are conducting classes outside.
“I am sending a department official to conduct an inquiry and take some more rooms or a building on rent till a new building is constructed. The education department has already sanctioned money to the municipal corporation for the school building,” he said.
Chatarpur SDM Rajiv Samdhiya said the municipal corporation was the construction agency responsible for building the school in their area.
He also said that the corporation had floated tender thrice for construction of the school building, but no agency showed its interest.
“Now, if for the fourth time no one shows interest, we will write to the state government to either change the building agency or relax some pre-conditions in the tender,” he said.
A few days back HT had reported about a school being run on the street in the same district due to unavailability of a school building. A school in Neemuch district of the state was found to be holding classes in a toilet earlier this year.
[“source=hindustantimes”]
