Class rooms in car shed!

Class rooms in car shed!

For more than a year, 95 children of this government school in Sarjapur Road have been crowded into three unventilated rooms. All because the PWD wanted to widen the nearby road, something that is yet to happen

Aditi Soni
Posted On Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A year back, this government school was no different from any other school. A proper building, comfortable classrooms, enough furniture et al. It had everything. But today, it’s one of its kind in Bangalore. The school functions, believe it or not, from an extended car shed.

All this, thanks to the PWD. In June 2007, the school building was demolished so that the road could be widened. But to date, neither has the road been widened nor has the school been provided with an alternative building.

AUTHORITIES TURN A BLIND EYE
This school, which has been running for more than five years in Kasavanhalli near Kaikondarahalli on Sarjapur Road, was ‘evicted’ in a single day. With nowhere to go, the taluk president Jagdish Reddy offered them the car shed of his lavish bungalow so that classes could continue.

“The PWD officials came and asked us to vacate the place immediately. We had no other option but to accept whatever we were being offered and re-start the school”, said Rukminiyamma, the headmistress of the school.

Since then, she has regularly written to the education department to arrange for a building, but predictably there has been little response. After the demolition, no officer has even bothered to enquire if the school even exists or not.”They are blind towards the conditions we are working in. Forget about any extra help from their side, minimal basic needs too can’t be expected from these people”, Rukminiyamma lamented.

PATHETIC CONDITIONS
From class one to five, more than 95 children attend classes here everyday. But the three sheds currently available can hardly accommodate all of them. Right now, students from two separate grades study together in the same room. For instance, first and second standard students study in one room, while the third, fourth and fifth standard students study in another room. But luckily they have at least the bigger rooms for themselves.

The worst sufferers are the nursery kids who are all dumped in the remaining tiny room with insufficient natural light. With no desks or benches, these kids have to sit on a mat and study.”All this is unavoidable. It’s funny to see that these students get mid-day meals and uniforms but no shelter has been given. So many times we pleaded to government, but all requests fell on the deaf ears,” said Nagamani C, another teacher.

The teachers reveal that at times the temperature inside the shed is so high that kids even faint. All this has affected their admission process too. “Because of the space limitations, admissions too were very minimal this year,” added Nagamani.

The worst part is when the kids want to attend nature’s call. With no provision for toilets, they have to trudge, or sprint depending on the urgency, a kilometre or more to relieve themselves. And all for no fault of theirs. “Some land developers came ahead to get us out of this problem. Though they promised two rooms, the construction never got completed. So in the end we are left in this place struggling hard to do the social work irrespective of circumstances,” added Rukminiyamma. Thumbs up to what determined women can do.

What about the parents’ reaction to all this? “The parents are illiterate and poor fellows. They really don’t understand the intensity of the problem their kids are going through. Rather they heave a sigh of relief that their kids at least are getting one healthy meal a day,” rued Nagamani.