‘How can a school run from 2 dingy rooms… difficult to even breathe here’: Why young ones are suffering in Punjab’s youngest district Malerkotla

The senior secondary school (boys) does not even have a regular principal despite being elevated as a PM-SHRI school, and the Science students are studying here without a Physics lecturer.

The govt primary school which doesn’t have its own building, runs from two rooms. Three classes and four teachers sit in one room. (Express photo : Gurmeet Singh)

Four years have passed, but Malerkotla still does not have its own two district education officers (DEOs), with such posts not being sanctioned and Sangrur DEOs given additional charge.

‘How can a school run from two rooms’

Start from Malerkotla’s government primary school, and it is difficult to even breathe or stand for a few minutes in the two rooms, from where the school, sans a building of its own, has been running for almost four years now.

A total of 178 children from pre-primary to class 5 sit crammed in the two rooms allotted to the primary school in the building of senior secondary for girls. The school has 11 teachers and on the day all of them are present, six teachers sit in one class and five in the other, with their chairs tightly placed against each other.

“Such is the state that if one teacher sitting in an extreme corner has to go to a washroom, all four sitting next have to move. We think twice even before going to the washroom. We have no idea for how long this nonsense will continue? It is difficult to breathe and even stand here for a few minutes,” a teacher requesting anonymity said, when The Indian Express team visited the school.

Highlighting that classrooms are a “pre-requisite” for teaching, Manjit Kaur, head teacher of the school, asked: “How can a school run from two rooms”.

“There’s no space. How can we teach properly? Our own building was vacated to construct a new building for senior secondary school and since then we have been dumped in these two rooms. In my initial months of posting here, I would go into depression thinking how is it even possible to teach here but my colleagues are still managing somehow and trying to teach children in whatever way we can in two rooms. Ehni zyada dikkat hai saade kol shabd nahi han bayaan karan nu (We have no words to explain the many difficulties we are facing),” she said.

While the Punjab government boasts of its decision to start a pre-primary wing in government schools, there’s not an inch of space in Malerkotla’s primary school to conduct activities for pre-primary children as per the mandatory curriculum. When this correspondent visited the school, children from classes 1, 4 and 5 were crammed in one room, and classes 2, 3 and pre-primary in the other.

The space issue has started affecting the admissions. Around two years ago, the school had 214 children, the number has now reduced to 178. “Earlier, even private school children were shifting to us but not anymore. In today’s times, every parent wants that their child should at least have decent sitting space which we can’t provide,” Kaur added.

No Commerce stream, Science group without Physics lecturer — and no principal

The Government Senior Secondary School (Boys), Malerkotla, with 841 students from class 6 to 12, runs in double-shift due to shortage of classrooms. But the tragedy here is not just the space, but also the severe shortage of teachers. The school doesn’t even have a regular principal since the last one was transferred out in August, and now Mohammad Dilshad, an English lecturer, is the officiating incharge.

The school does not even run a basic Commerce stream for class 11 and 12, while the Science group is studying without a Physics lecturer. All this even as the school has attained the status of a PM-SHRI.

“We need at least 15 more classrooms, if not 15 then at least 10,” Dilshad, the only English lecturer for over 300 students from classes 11 and 12, said. “There’s no principal, clerk or even a peon.”

Four teachers attending children from three classes at government primary school, Malerkotla. Teachers say they don’t even get elbow space (Express photo by Gurmeet Singh)

For classes 11 and 12, there’s no Physics lecturer and just one each for Mathematics, English and Punjabi. Such is the state of affairs that teachers have hired a private Physics teacher whom they pay from their own pocket or by collecting funds from donors.

The situation is no better for classes 6 to 10. Of the three Math teachers, one is on maternity leave; for Social Science, two of four posts are vacant, and for English there’s just one teacher. Over 230 students have opted for Physical Education, but there’s no teacher for the subject.

Even the available faculty has been sent on “non-teaching” duties by the local administration.

“ Mathematics teachers are being sent on stubble burning prevention and census duties. The work of a Math teacher is to conduct census and check fields for stubble burning or teach his students. They are called anytime for such non-teaching work. No one is even trying to listen or solve this crisis. Recently we were ordered to send students on an educational tour to Jaipur but we had no male teachers available to accompany them due to these extra works,” a teacher requesting anonymity, said.

For the boys’ school, the district tag for Malerkotla has come with a bigger burden. Despite classrooms’ shortage, four rooms have been spared for district education officials running their temporary office from the school.

At girls’ school, Chemistry lab is classroom, sitting on floor a routine

Running from an old heritage building, at least seven classrooms have been declared “unsafe” at the Government Senior Secondary School (Girls). The new building of the school is a work in progress for four years now.

With 1,173 students, the school runs in double shifts due to shortage of classrooms, as two rooms have also been spared for primary school.

When the correspondent visited the school, some girls were sitting on the floor of the Chemistry lab-turned-classroom.

Students sitting on floor in chemistry lab turned classroom at senior secondary school for girls. (Express photo: Gurmeet Singh)

“We have to run class 11 and 12 in the evening shift as only 14 classrooms are functional and seven unsafe,” Charanjit Singh, principal of the school, said. “There’s no playground even as our students are selected for state-level competitions in several sports.”

A student from class 9 said that there are fixed turns to sit on the floor. “There’s hardly any space and our elbows touch each other in classrooms. On most days, we attend classes in Chemistry lab and sometimes even in the open verandah,” the student added.

When asked about the crisis, AAP’s Malerkotla MLA Mohammad Jamil ur Rehman said that the new building for girls’ secondary school is almost ready and once they shift, the old one will be given to primary school.

“Other issues are also being sorted,” he concluded.