Himachal polls: In tribal constituency Bharmour, govt primary schools on ventilator, many with single teacher

The unsafe building of government primary school, Brehi in tribal constituency Bharmour. (Photos: Divya Goyal)

According to villagers, another spell of rainfall or landslide, and the structure where students sit currently, won’t survive at all.

Not just Brehi, but government primary schools in other villages of Bharmour are also on ventilator – either running from unsafe buildings or having a single teacher or no teachers at all. With the constituency stretching till far flung villages with majority of population being tribal, children here are completely dependent on government schools for primary education.

As Himachal Pradesh prepares to vote in a new government on November 12, electors from Bharmour, which has voted alternately for Congress and BJP since 1998, feel that it is hardly going to make any difference if saffron party retains power or Congress trounces it. From Bharmour, BJP has dropped its sitting MLA Jiya Lal Kapoor giving ticket to Dr Janak Raj, a neurosurgeon, who is pitted against former forest minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri of Congress.

The unsafe building of government primary school, Brehi in tribal constituency Bharmour. (Photos: Divya Goyal)

At Brehi school, where there are 45 students, including 29 in primary and 16 in pre-primary sections, Bhinder Kumar, a teacher, said that children here come from villages on foot as far as 3 kilometers away because they don’t have access to any private school. “Some villagers have donated us a piece of land for new school building but till it is not constructed, we continue to work from here. There are no toilets, no safe drinking water, children run on to the main road where vehicles pass every minute,” said the teacher, adding, “we have recently received the grant for new building”.

The nearby Government Primary School (GPS), Sakral has only one teacher since 2015. Another school at Sadoon was without a teacher for two years, said Kumar, adding that a teacher on deputation was sent few months back only. GPS Kuthwara too has a single teacher since 2019.

Even in other constituencies of Chamba, government primary schools in villages continue to face lack of infrastructure and teachers. At GPS Kakira in Bhattiyat constituency, children from classes 1 to 5 classes are cramped in two classrooms, and two teachers handle multiple classes simultaneously.