Classes on holidays, free textbooks, missing labs: After the floods, a Gujarat learning curve

In a first, the Gujarat government has allowed schools – spread across the six districts of Surat, Valsad, Navsari, Tapi, Dang and Bharuch – to remain open on public holidays, so as to meet the mandatory 120 working days of the first semester that began in June. The government has also despatched around 1.45 lakh textbooks to schools in nine districts across the state that reported damage.

A waterlogged road outside Shri Saraswati Hindi Vidyalaya in Surat following heavy rainfall. (Special Arrangement)

The state saw two spells of unusually heavy rains in July. The decision to keep the schools closed during the second spell was taken after children had to be rescued from flooded buildings and stranded buses during the rains on July 7-8. In Valsad district’s Dharampur taluka, a school van driver got swept away while trying to save a child. He was among the 34 people whose bodies were recovered after the flood water receded.

“Water entered our school on July 22, flooding the classrooms, auditorium, clerk’s office and the records room. It was only on July 24 that the water started receding, after which we carried out cleaning activities. Many records and books, including of students, were damaged,” says MP Liliyawala Vidyabhavan Principal Rajeshbhai Rabari.

The school runs Classes 1 to 12 in Gujarati, Hindi and English medium. According to Rabari, parents have been “very supportive” about sending children to school on holidays.

‘Water levels kept climbing’

In Tiskari Talat village of Valsad, which was among the worst-affected, Sushila was with her husband Ajay Gavit, when the school van he was driving was swept away in the waters. The couple had picked up 14 children from their village, and he had got off to pick a 10-year-old, when the water levels suddenly rose. Sushila recalls that he put Pari on his back, but lost his balance and fell. While a passerby pulled Pari to safety, Gavit was swept away.

School van driver Ajay Gavit and wife (Special Arrangement)

His body was found several days later, in Tumbi village, 5 km away.

Gavit’s son Krushang has dropped out of Class 12 to take over his father’s job, to supplement the family income. Says Sushila: “Officials came to our house, collected details and promised us compensation, but till date not a single penny has reached us.”

Inspector Nilesh Bhoya of the Dharampur Police Station, who attended Sushila’s call seeking help that day, recalls that he had had a similar scare hours earlier. As water levels rose, his 12-year-old daughter Sonal called him, asking to be picked up from school. “We argued with the teachers for not informing us on time,” Bhoya says.

Jayshree Tandel, the Education Officer of Valsad district, says: “Many villages and talukas were inundated for the first time ever, with some seeing water levels reach 7-8 ft. In the 128 schools affected in the district, documents, computer laboratories, smart boards, furniture, boundary walls, etc, were damaged.” Almost all the affected schools in Valsad are run by the district panchayat, while three are government-run secondary schools, two are ashramshalas, five grant-in-aid schools, and 12 private schools.

Arun Agrawal, the Collector of Navsari district, which was also affected, says they have sought an estimate of the losses from schools, to determine grants.

In Surat district, where 30 schools were affected, Municipal Education Board Chairman Rajendra Desai says: “In some schools, the textbooks yet to be distributed to students were also submerged in the floodwaters.”

The campus of the Shree Swaminarayan Gurukul in Salvav village, with around 4,000 students from Nursery to Class 12, says they lost a lot of equipment as water levels reached up to 8 feet height. “As the school was closed, there was nobody to shift the documents and other items to the upper floors. The ground floor has all the laboratories,” says Principal Reena Desai.

Satish Ahir, the Principal of a government school in Vaghrech village of Navsari, which has Classes from 1 to 8, says: “In my 10 years at this school, it is the first time I saw such flooding… All the school records and equipment, furniture were submerged.”

Manubhai Pavra, the Executive President of the Gujarat State School Textbook Board, told The Indian Express that they were providing textbooks free to all schools across the state, including private, for the first time. “Earlier we did so for one or two districts, such as after the Banaskantha flood in 2017.”

“The main purpose is to ensure that the education of children continues, especially for those belonging to backward backgrounds. Students should not be under any anxiety,” says Pavra.

(with inputs from Ritu Sharma, Ahmedabad)