15yrold girl doubles up as teacher in Raj school
In a government upper primary school in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur, 15-year-old Madhu Kumari teaches students of classes 1 to 5 before heading to Class 7, where she is a student.
For three hours every day, Madhu doubles up as a teacher to make up for the absence of faculty in her school — a reality across the 1,196 primary and upper primary schools in Bharatpur that face a shortage of teaching staff.
“The students of senior classes struggle to complete their syllabus as there’s no one to teach us,” said Madhu, who devotes one hour each to Maths, Hindi and English.
“I make all students of primary classes sit in one classroom and teach them from 9.30am to 12.30pm,” she said.
Acknowledging the dismal situation, principal Rajni Upadhyay said, “I have been requesting senior department officials to post teachers here but in vain.”
She added that she had requested Madhu to teach the primary classes.
The 15-year-old’s three siblings — Mayank, Palak and Shivani — study in the same school.
Their father works as a daily wage labourer, while their mother stays at home.
Other students of the school also rue the state of affairs.
Puja Kumari and Chanchal Kumari of Class 8 said they were sceptical of taking the board examination as there was no one to teach them.
The principal, too, admitted most of the students were weak in all subjects.
“They don’t have even basic general knowledge and can’t name India’s President and Prime Minister, let alone the local MP and MLA,” she said.
There are 134 students in the school, including 73 girls.
Additional district education officer of elementary education Sunil Gupta said most primary and upper primary school in the city were facing a shortage of teachers.
He added that 24 teachers would be allotted to different schools at the earliest.
BHARATPUR: