Two classes, one room, one teacher - a harsh reality here
PRAYAGRAJ : Students of two different classes are crammed in a single classroom and a single teacher is handling two classes simultaneously. This is the scene at a school in Payagraj, which is facing shortage of classrooms and teachers.
Teachers find it very difficult to wriggle out from the situation as their several correspondences with senior officials of the department in the past have failed to improve the situation.
For example, at Prathmik Vidyalay, Chibaiya, Bahadurpur (I) in Praygraj district, situated around 25 kilometers from the city, headmistress Rajni
Srivastava has to teach students of class 2 and 3 in the same room as the school has only four classrooms to hold classes from standard 1 to 5.
The headmistress said that there were only four teachers posted instead of the requisite strength of five teaches for teaching from class 1 to class 5. She said that students of class 2 and class 3 were sitting in the same room with two separate blackboards due to the existing scarcity. The school, having a total strength of 110 students, had 53 students enrolled in class 2 and sit in the same room with the headmistress teaching both classes simultaneously.
“I have to manage both the classes. After I teach a topic to students of class 2 and give them some work on the board to copy in their notebooks, I shift to class 3 and do the same and return back to class 2,” she added.
The situation is worse at Purv
Madhyamik Vidyalay, Jamunipur, Prayagraj as only two classrooms are available in a portion of Panchayat Bhawan for running classes from 6 to 8. Headmistress of the school Veena informed that due to shortage of space, two classes were being run in a single room.
Not less shockingly, office of headmistress and kitchen for cooking mid day meal (MDM) of the Purv Madhyamik Vidyalay are running in open verandah of the British period building, presently in a dilapidated state.
According to the headmistress, of the total strength of 96 students in the school, 34 students each were enrolled in class 6 and 7 while 28 students were registered in class 8.
“Students of class 6 and 7 were made to study in one room due to lack of space. Several letters to office of Basic Sihksha Adhikari, Prayagraj has failed to bear fruit till now,” she informed.