Flooded Bridges, Slushy Tracks: Tribal Kids Struggle To Reach School
Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Every spell of heavy showers means a two or three days holiday for the tribal boys and girls studying in the Government Middle Schools at Singoda and Bapcha villages in the Timarni block of Harda district of Madhya Pradesh.
That is because water from a bridge on a rivulet on the kutcha road that leads to the school begins overflowing, making it impossible for students to cross it. Also, they have to walk on slushy and slippery roads to reach their schools.
The two villages are about 60 km from Harda town. According to social activist Aarif Khan, who works in the area, requests for building a metalled road to access the schools is not being accepted as the area falls within a protected forest, where pucca roads are not permitted.
Aarif says that the students have to walk around 5 km to reach the middle schools. For those who want to enroll in Class 9, the nearest high school is 30 km away. “Because of these problems, the dropout rate in the area is very high. One in every four students drops out after clearing Class 8,” Aarif said.
Similarly, students face problems as schools in other tribal and rural areas in Madhya Pradesh become inaccessible due to rains.
Kandai Kalan is a predominantly tribal village, about 16 km from Itarsi in the Narmadapuram district of the state. Young children have to reach the school in the village by treading a slushy kutcha road. Bikes of teachers get stuck in the mud. There is also the danger of the bikes and bicycles slipping, said an advocate Ajay Mehra.
In Sarari, a village under the Gader Gram Panchayat of Raghogarh block in Guna district, classes are held under a tarpaulin tent.
The Government Primary School in the village has its building but it is in such a poor state that the villagers decided to arrange a tent for holding the classes. The school has 54 students and one teacher.
It is not that high or higher secondary schools are any better. Two girl students suffered injuries and had to be hospitalised after plaster from the ceiling fell on them in the Mauganj district. And this was no ordinary school; the incident happened at a Sandipani (CM Rise) School - Government Higher Secondary School, Deotalab.
Senior Congress leader and former leader of opposition in the Vidhan Sabha, Ajay Singh, had uploaded a video on his X account recently showing children holding hands to balance themselves as they walk to their school on a muddy, slushy track, dotted by puddles in a village called Mahidal, just 10 km away from Rewa. “What can be a bigger failure for a government than not being able to provide safe access to schools?” he wrote.
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