Baran kids boycott school to teach their teachers a lesson

JAIPUR: In the government upper primary school at Puraini in Sandokda gram panchayat of Shahabad block, Baran, there were only four children present on October 4. There were four teachers present too. There are 218 children enrolled in this school. All the other kids were in protest mode – the children complain that their teachers are often absent or late. When they arrive for classes in the morning, they find their school locked and barred.Nearly 200 children have decided that they can only get their voices heard if they boycott classes. They have stayed away for a week in a bid to put pressure on the local authorities to act.
Harvi Lal, a student of Class 8 at the school, said, "On most days, the school remains shut because the teachers are either absent or late. There are occasions when the block officer has arrived to open the school and lets us in and assures us that the teacher will be here. That is just not good enough. We need teachers who teach."
Two of the four teachers in the school are Shiksha Karmis, working on contract. Om Prakash and Manorama Sharma, the Shiksha Karmis, are also married to each other. They have spent several years teaching in this school. The children claim they have a poor record where punctuality is concerned. The other two teachers are Dinesh Sharma and Mohan Prasad. The senior most teacher of the school, Gopal Lal, was away attending a meeting at the nodal office on October 4, when Firoz Khan, a social activist, visited the school. "Seeing the students on protest, I informed district collector SP Singh. He said that I hand over the phone to one of the teachers and he spoke with Dinesh Sharma. The teacher, however, protested his innocence. He insisted that he had been attending school regularly and on time. The district collector told me then that he would probe the matter but nothing seems to have been done to assuage the children's anger."
The protesting students are of Classes 6, 7 and 8. They are determined that they will not allow the teachers to waste their time any more. Despite the children being on protest for a week, the teachers have not attempted to meet the kids, or offered to come on time so that the kids can resume their classes. "The children are determined. The pity is that the authorities do not seem to be bothered at all about the plight of these poor children," Firoz Khan said.
District collector SP Singh told TOI, "When I first got to know about the protest, I asked the additional district magistrate, Shahabad, for a report. He has submitted an interim report, according to which this is a matter of some personal dispute. The teachers have been reporting for work on time, according to his interim findings. He will submit a final report in two days. We will take what action needs to be taken once that report is submitted."