MANGALORE : The Mahatma Gandhi Government High School at Konaje can serve as a good example to the extent of significance attached by government towards rural education.
The school belonging to the DK Zilla Panchayat, still does not have its own building. Presently, classes are being conducted in this school in a temporary room made of dried coconut fronds.
It has been four years since this school was opened. Since then several requests have been made to the authorities concerned to grant an independent building to this school, but of no avail. The school lacks several basic amenities like water, and lavatory. Even seven to eight students sit on one bench in the classrooms. In case it rains, then classes are naturally suspended.
Presently, the school is being run on a temporary basis in the Konaje’s Mangala Grameena Yuvaka Sangha building with the help of Mangala Seva Trust, School Development Committee and generous donors.
As more number of students were enrolled for ninth standard this year, the management faced the inevitability of constructing an additional classroom made of dried coconut fronds.
The locals express anguish over the government neglect to rural education which, they say would only refrain rural children from going to schools.
Sanjeeva, SDMC member of the school says the school was opened on July 7, 2007 without any aid from the government, at the building of the Yuvaka Sangha. Then there were just 20 students. When 30 more students were enrolled the following year, the Yuvaka Mandala building was extended and a first floor was constructed to facilitate conduct of classes. “This year as it was impossible to accommodate 150 students in the building, the temporary arrangement had to be done,” he adds.
Veena Gaonkar, the headmistress of this school since the past one year, says it is a matter of pride that the school has registered 94 per cent results in SSLC exams and has bagged the first place per centage wise among schools in rural areas of the district, despite several limitations.
She says she has brought the pathetic state of the school to the notice of the authorities several times. Presently a place has been identified for the construction of the school building and efforts are being made to secure the RTC. The matter has to be decided by the education officer, she explains.
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