Education on back burner in periphery schools

CHANDIGARH: A school building meant to accommodate only the primary classes is being utilised for conducting classes till Class X. The science laboratory does not even have a water tap and is being used as a makeshift classroom, same is the case with the home science lab. Five posts of teachers are lying vacant for the last two years, students cannot access the library because the school does not have a librarian, teachers have to make do with a makeshift staff room.Pass percentage in Class X: 11 per cent.
If your thoughts are veering around to a government school in the hinterlands of a state like Bihar, then you are way off the mark. This scenario is of the Government High School in the city backyard at Khuda Ali Sher.
The institution that had been set up in 1971 as a primary school was upgraded to a high school in 1993-94. But the school building remained the same. Result: Students of two classes remain in perpetual suspense about the next location of their classroom.
And what is more, it is not the only school with such educational facilities. Take the case of Government Model Middle School at Khuda Jassu. Being a ‘model" school, one expects better standards. But according to authorities, the labs in the school were without equipment for a major part of the year.
The Government High School at Khuda Lahora has three posts of teachers lying vacant, which has affected the pass percentage that was 18 per cent this time.
Sources say that the government schools in the UT villages remain poor cousins of their city counterparts on the majority of parameters.
‘‘The teachers posted in these schools are reluctant to take up the assignments. They generally consider it a punishment posting," says a teacher.
A majority of the students in these schools are drawn from lower economic strata of the society, where education is not the top priority. ‘‘Due to lack of incentives, the teachers are reluctant to make that extra effort," says a teacher.
‘‘With an annual stationery fund of Rs 7 per child,we are not even in a position to conduct the tests properly. Elsewhere, the schools can approach the parents in such matters, but here the socio-economic conditions are different,"" the teacher adds.
DPI (schools) D S Mangat said that the needs of these schools were being met on a regular basis. He cited the non-availability of land as the reason for non-expansion of some of the schools.
‘‘We have been paying them extra attention under various schemes. These schools have all the facilities that are available in government schools elsewhere," he said. But going by the educational standards at these schools, it seems the departmental efforts have so far failed to make any difference to the situation at the ground level.