By Irshad Khan
Srinagar, Apr 12: Disputing the authorities’ claims of improving the school infrastructure, Government Middle School at Khanyar demonstrates the consistent apathy shown by the government.
Set up in a rented building, belonging to the J&K Wakf Board, near the DastgeerSahab (RA) shrine way back in 1950, the school has not been provided with a building of its own.
The rented building has turned dilapidated and unsafe.
Despite the authorities formally declaring it unsafe a few years back, the school, as per the sources, continues to function in the same building.
The staircase leading to the first floor of the building is dangerously dark and without electricity.
On Monday, when it happened to be raining, the crumbled ceiling allowed the water to seep into the classrooms.
Four shabby rooms with worn-out doors and windows further reflects on the below par infrastructure of the school.
While a relatively full attendance could be expected on the first day of the week, barely a dozen of the 52 enrolled students had turned up.
In fact the thin attendance on a particular day and the meager enrollment of students in the first place reflects on the acute shortage of infrastructure at the school, which probably has been keeping the students in the locality away from the school.
Seven teachers, mostly females, posted at the school also complained about the repeated failure of the School Education Department to improve the infrastructure.
Over the worsening condition of the school over the past many years, a teacher quipped, “Nothing has improved in the school”.
Another teacher, however, hoped that the school would soon get its building.
“We are hopeful to get our own building soon. Wakf Board would dismantle this building,” he said.
An official in the School Education Department said they were made helpless by “the shortage of land for schools building in the education zones of Srinagar”.
“This is true for most of the zones. We just have a handful of schools with their own buildings. The rest are running in rented buildings,” the official said.
