- After a building collapsed in the school, students from five different grades were crammed into a single hall
- Five different subjects are taught in the class, sometimes simultaneously
- The school education minister said the government is striving to provide the best possible resources
In one corner, a teacher helps students learn the English alphabet - A for Apple, B for Ball, C for Cat - in another, some are taught the Hindi alphabet, and, in yet another, a blackboard reads "2+2 = 4". In the cramped classroom, a student pipes up, puzzled, "Sir, why did this cat become four?"
This scene, which seems straight out of a satirical show on the education system and infrastructure, is an unfortunate reality in the Uchehra block of Madhya Pradesh's Satna, where the Dudha Primary School has redefined what a classroom can be. After a building collapsed, 95 children from five different grades were crammed into a single hall, with five different blackboards and five different subjects being taught, sometimes simultaneously.
This leaves the students searching for education in the cacophony.
Teacher Lavkush Kori explained the reality: "Without classrooms, the only option was to combine classes. Boards were needed and festivals reduced attendance, and when all the children came together, the real challenge was not teaching, but ensuring the students were protected from the rain."
Sometimes classes were held under a tree, and then children had to be rushed indoors to avoid the weather. One student summed up the struggle succinctly: "It is very difficult to study. Voices come from everywhere. Sometimes we understand, sometimes we don't. There is too much noise."
Dudha is not an isolated case. More than 70 schools in Satna are battling similar conditions. Files are shuffled between government departments, like batons in a relay race without end, while children are left waiting for classrooms that are never built. Pushpraj Sharma, the headmaster of one such school, said the building had been demolished two years ago and many letters had been written, but no action followed.
Approvals Pending
Sunil Saraf, Assistant Engineer at the District Education Centre in Satna, admitted that proposals had been sent and approvals were pending, and work would begin only once that happened.
Even the state capital is not spared. In a school just behind the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal, classes up to the fifth standard have been squeezed into one room for years. There is no playground and even the mid-day meal is served in the same cramped space.
In Madhya Pradesh government schools, more than one crore children were enrolled in Classes 1 to 8 in 2010-11 and the number has nearly halved to 54.58 lakh now. Hundreds of schools have seen zero admissions this year, 7,217 schools continue to operate with a single teacher and more than 5,600 either have no buildings or function in crumbling ones.
The government insists it is responding. School Education Minister Uday Pratap Singh said that, under Chief Minister Mohan Yadav's leadership, plans had been prepared for maintenance and new classrooms, with proposals sent to the finance department and funds allocated. He acknowledged shortages but maintained that the government is striving to provide the best possible resources.
