Adilabad: The merger of schools likely to spell doom to students

Adilabad: The children of poor and their parents are likely to be at loss if the State government goes ahead and closes the schools, especially the primary schools, citing less strength and implements one school in five-kilometre radius policy. It is well-known that the primary schools are now located within a radius of kilometre, upper primary in three kilometres and high schools in a five kilometre radius in the State and the many of the students studying in these schools are from poor economic backgrounds.

If the government goes ahead and implements its single school policy within a radius of five kilometres, many of the children, especially those studying in primary schools would be at loss and would be forced to travel long distances to school.

At present, there are 1,268 government schools in the district and of them 69 are primary schools, 853 upper primary schools and the remaining 346 are high schools. Around 92,370 students are studying in these government schools and of them, the number of boys is 45,055 and girls 47,315.

Implementing the one school system within five-kilometre radius will have a negative impact on primary schools, feel the education experts. Many parents would be reluctant to send their children to schools if they are located 5 km away from the place of their residence. There is a risk that students, especially those residing in tribal hamlets, might drop out owing to the longer distances they would have to travel.

Meanwhile, the teachers and parents are opposing the new policy and demanding the government to withdraw it.

Jadhav Ashok Kumar, State Teachers Union (STU) district president, speaking to The Hans India, stated that with the new policy the poor children are likely to drop out. According to the Right to Education Act, a government primary school should be located in the radius of 1 kilometre, upper primary within three kilometres and high school within five kilometres. Instead of closing the schools that have fewer students, upgrading the existing ones with English medium will increase the number of students and the government should think about it again.

Anshetty Anil, speaking to The Hans India, said that his son, Akruth, is studying in Belluri village primary school and if the government implements the new policy, the primary school in his village would be closed and he would be forced to send his son to a private school shelling out thousands of rupees as fee.

Balio Ram, a primary school teacher of Dhannora village of Indervelli mandal added that parents are increasingly preferring to admit their children in English medium government schools. So, at least now the government should upgrade the existing primary or upper primary schools into English medium schools with which the parents will happily enrol their children in the government schools there by increasing the strength.