This Government Primary school in Anantnag has 3 teachers 5 students

Sameer Ahmad

Anantnag 15 March: A Government primary school in the Shelipora Kehirbal area of South Kashmir’s Anantnag district is housed in a three-room, newly constructed building. The school was established 15 years back in the village. The school is about 20 km’s away from the main town in Anantnag District with a total roll of 5 students. There are 3 teachers including the headmaster posted in the school.

These five students are placed in a three-room newly constructed building. The school has 6 six bathrooms in the name of facilities.

Despite the government’s claim of organizing drives in villages and towns to increase enrolment in schools, the number of students in the government elementary schools in Jammu and Kashmir has decreased by 1.75 lakh in a year.

According to a Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting chaired by Secretary Education and Literacy in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in June last year, the J&k school Education Department has fared poorly on retention rate at primary, upper primary, and secondary level classes.

The PAB meeting “Samagra Shiksha” was convened to consider the annual work plan and Budget (AWP&B) 2020-2021 for Jammu and Kashmir. As per the minutes of the meeting, the total enrolment decline across classes is nearly 1.75 lakh in 2019-2020.

Besides poor enrolments, the retention rate in government schools is also low with only 60% at the elementary level and 50% at the secondary level.

The government schools, particularly up to the elementary level, are witnessing a downfall in enrolment mainly due to a lack of basic facilities in the schools for which the department gets a separate grant from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) every year.

The government of India is allocating thousands of crores of rupees for the improvement of education in the country but everything is going in vain. No one is bothered about decreasing student enrolment in government schools.

The school is a glaring example of the State’s poor education system. “The children of the poor like us are left at God’s mercy,” said a local resident to Arising state adding that “how can the students of this school compete with the students of other schools without any facilities.

Locals said that it should be better for school authorities to merge this primary school to a Middle school which is located nearby the village, said a parent wishing non-anonymity to Arising State

However, sources told  Arising state that there are also many schools in Anantnag District where the role of children is more and the number of teachers is less.

Meanwhile, after repeated attempts to contact the ZEO of the district our call was not answered by the official.