Haryana: Forced to compromise due to a lack of funds and land, a 35-year-old government-run primary school in Haryana’s Jind district is operating out of just two rooms – Classes 1, 2 and 3 all sit in one room and Classes 4 and 5 in another.
With dozens of students crowded into one room – in which each class learns different subjects simultaneously – and two to three teachers shouting out lessons and instructions at any given time, the onus, unfairly so, is on the 160 young boys and girls to focus on their respective teachers.
The teachers – of whom there are five – are doing their bit to help their young charges. They have taken it upon themselves to set up a shed to cover the school and protect the students from the rain, the brutal summer sun and other extremes of the weather. Over the years, they have also chipped in to pay, from their own pocket, for other basic amenities.
“There is a lack of land… because of this there is no construction of additional buildings and we have to set up double shifts for students. Otherwise we will transfer them, for some subjects, to other schools so they can continue their education,” Diljeet Singh, the school principal, said.
“I teach three classes in a day… the children of two or more classes sit in one room and study. One set face one direction for their lessons and the second set faces the opposite direction,” Kamala Devi, one of the teachers, says, adding, “This is how we adjust. It is very difficult… especially for the children… but what can we do? There is no space”.
Government schools in Haryana have made the headlines in recent days but for the wrong reasons. On Tuesday two teachers of a government school in Hisar district were arrested for allegedly sexually harassing female students, and last week two girls from another school in the same district were allegedly paraded with blackened faces for faring poorly in a test.
