This school refuses to admit new students!

Staff dissuade people from admitting their kids to the school sans facilities

A school bustling with students’ chatter is a healthy indicator of the Institute prosperity. The more the number of students, the more popular the school is.

Here is a school in Kolar City, whose authorities shudder even by the thought of rise in the number of students enrolling at the institute.

Reason: The Government Lower Primary School at Gangammapalya lacks basic facilities and infrastructure. Two classrooms sans toilet and drinking water facilties is all that the school can boast of. And it conducts classes from Standard 1 to 5, with as many as 50 students studying in the only two rooms.

Located beside the Kolar-Chikkaballapur main road, the school gets inundated not just with rain water during monsoons, but also drainage water. Every time it rains, the students get to the business of emptying the two rooms of rain and drainage water with the help of mugs and buckets.

The small compound around the building is often filled with slush and muddy water. Puddle of rainwater make it difficult for the children to even walk past to reach their classrooms. There are several instances of students slipping and falling down.

Simple measures

All it takes is simple measures to avoid the rainwater from gushing inside the school premises. But who is interested anyway?

Such is the plight of the students who are already studying in the school that the teachers are now wary of students seeking admissions. “They will suffer, if they get admissions here,” they are of the opinion. They infact discourage fresh admissions and advise the parents to go elsewhere.

“We are sick of submitting memorandums to the authorities concerned. There is a limit to
our sufferings,” she bemoans. Students from the surrounding areas like Aralligate, Tipunagar, Vinayaknagar, Veeranjaneya Nagar and even from the far flung Millatnagar attend the school. Three teachers manage the entire show.

“We manage during the rest of the seasons. But it is worst during monsoon. Biting cold and damp walls with knee-deep water is no better than hell. We pity the students who come here with earnest interest but are made to suffer for no fault of theirs. Last year, the strength of the students was 85. This year, it has been reduced to 50. We discourage students who approach us for admissions,” the headmistress informed.

Students, whose siblings also seek admission here are sent back. Last year, we issued transfer certificates to 11 students, Sarojamma added.

Since the school is accessible to almost all the areas, thanks to its prominent location, a lot of children belonging to financially backward classes are keen to join the school.

Spread of diseases

“It is not just the accumulation of rain water. But also the constant fear of spread of various diseases. For the last 10 years, the students have been suffering silently in the same conditions, Sarojamma said and added last year, an engineer from the City Municipal Council informed that an amount of Rs one lakh had been sanctioned to the school under the 18 per cent grants scheme.

He had also informed that the amount could be utilised for the necessary repair works of the school building. We had requested to increase the height of the compound flooring so that rain water did not gush inside. Till today, the engineer had not bothered to come back nor has the repair works being undertaken,” she informed.

“We had also been assured of alternative places in R G Layout or Palasandra Layout to shift the school premises, on behalf of the Kolar Urban Development Authority. Even this has not taken place so far,” she added.

The District In-charge Minister, R Varthur Prakash, who had visited the school recently, had assured that a community hall would also be constructed on behalf of the Public Works Department. Even this had failed to materialise.

In such circumstances, if the number of students increased, then it was a real pain - both to the teachers as well as the students - admits Sarojamma.