Andhra Pradesh - Karimnagar   

It's all but a school

K.M. Dayashankar

KARIMNAGAR: Students of Government Sawaran High School (Urdu medium) here, which held its golden jubilee celebrations some years ago, do not have classrooms, toilets and furniture!

Located in the heart of the town near the busy Civil Hospital road, unhygienic conditions prevail on the premises as stray dogs and pigs have a field day and local residents use it as dump yard.

That's not all. In the absence of an attender, students ring the bell and also clean the classrooms. And, to cap it all, the school is short of physics, Telugu and PET teachers.

Leave alone library and laboratory, students do not have a place to sit as the building has no roof. The classrooms, if you may call them so, are covered with a bamboo roof. Come rainy season, the plight of the students cannot be expressed in words. The apathy of the Education Department is there for all to see.

Silver lining

What's worse, even the food under the mid-day meal scheme is cooked in the open. And when it rains, the children are also forced to eat it by drenching themselves.

With a student-strength of 280, including 160 primary and 120 high school, this is the only Urdu medium school with a pass percentage of 72 in the SSC examination.

"Is studying in a Government school a sin? What crime have we committed? The Government is not responding to our plight," laments Afsha Jabeen, a 10th class student, with tears rolling down.

Says Sara Firdosh, a student of class nine: "We come to the class, clean the rooms and also ring the bell for prayer. There is no adequate furniture in the school."

School Headmaster Nazeeruddin says that that the problem started ever since they shifted from a private rented building to the Government land.

"The government allocated a piece of land for the school and sanctioned Rs. 1.4 lakhs for construction of school building under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan,'' he told The Hindu .

The amount released was not sufficient even for raising pillars of the building. With local contributions we could construct thatched rooms, he said.

He urged the district administration to provide the school with shelter and basic amenities like drinking water and toilets.

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It's all but a school

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