Don’t confuse this with Rabindranath Tagore’s Shantiniketan that held classes in the open, but about a dozen students of a government primary school attend classes under a makeshift shelter without walls while their school building undergoes repairs.
With more than 25 days to go for the end of the academic year the authorities have taken up the repairs of the Government Primary School Building at Ordhofond, Poinguinim, forcing the students to sit in a shelter made of steel sheets, that get heated up with the sun. The school building has been in a dilapidated condition for several years.
GPS Ordhofond, which has had a poor enrollment record in the past few years, as most students from the surrounding area have sought admission in private schools in the locality. Now, with its students forced into this makeshift temporary shade for the past few days a higher number of enrolments in the future looks bleak, sources said.
Incidentally, several government primary school buildings in Canacona taluka are lying in bad shape and many of the students are attending classes in these buildings. While some of the government school buildings, especially those which are also used as polling booths, receive government attention and are taken up for repairs, most others school buildings continue to remain in poor conditions though they require urgent repairs.
When contacted, Poinguinim Sarpanch Mahesh Naik said that as the condition of Ordhofond GPS building was in bad shape, its repair work has been taken on an urgent basis, so that students won’t suffer in the next academic year especially during the monsoon.
Incidentally, local residents criticized the government for not doing enough during the current academic year, and for having timed the repair works at a point in the academic year when students will be answering their final examinations.
