Education for all a misnomer

SAMBALPUR: Students of Girigovardhan Primary School in Sonepur’s Gadgadbahal village under Binka block are unsure if they should return to their classes on June 17 when the summer vacation ends. All that the school can boast of is a single Sikshya Sahayak. While they will hardly have anything to learn in the classes, there is no point ‘idling away time’ in school when the kharif season is approaching.Girigovardhan Primary School may have been in a distant village. In Binka NAC, similar tales abound. Take the instance of Kuni Jagdala and Rinu Bag, both students of Rajpali Primary School, they are not keen to go back to school with a lone teacher having to manage five classes.  At least 231 primary schools in Sonepur district are manned by a single teacher.In some schools, even two teachers are of no help as they are left only with one as the other is engaged in  mid-day meal and other works.Contrast this with the Right to Education norms which necessitate 30:1 student-teacher ratio. Ironically, even the two posts of  District Inspector of Schools in the district are also lying vacant as the headmistress of Maharaja High School in Sonepur is holding additional charge of both positions.Statistics available with the District Sarva Sikhya Abhijan put the total student enrolment at 85,000 in the district from Class I to VIII. Sonepur has 987 primary schools with just 1,791 regular teachers besides 231 teaching assistants. Of the 987 schools, 231 schools run with a single teacher with Tarbha block having the highest of 73 single-teacher schools followed by 56 in Birmaharajpur block, 24 in Sonepur block, 19 schools each in Dungripali and Binka blocks.Project Coordinator of SSA, Utkal Ranjan Acharya admits that the large-scale vacancies have hit the academic process but asserts that steps have been initiated to fill up the vacant posts. In March this year, 130 Sikhya Sahayaks were appointed while by the end of the current month, 76 more will been recruited.Twenty more Sikhya Sahayaks will be appointed once the schools reopen, he added.What the situation has led to is a rise in the drop-out rate. Last year,  about 2,500 students had dropped out and this year, it is expected to go up further with students not keen to return to their schools in the absence of teachers.