Until a few months ago, Suraj Minz used to go to school regularly. The primary school at Kumbatoli under Nagri Block in Ranchi was just next to his house. But a few months ago, the Jharkhand government shifted the school to a new building. Now, Suraj has to walk more than two kilometres every day to reach the school, although it is located within a km from his house. With the road he usually takes becoming muddy in the rainy season, making it impossible to walk, Suraj has to walk nearly double the distance to reach the new school. And whenever it rains in the morning, he has to miss school.
In the same Nagri block, Anil Tirkey and Rajkumar, both Class II students, were playing outside the old building of Domatoli Primary School, which has now being merged with Saher Middle School, even though a cultural programme was organised at the school on Teacher’s day.
“It was raining in the morning. I did not go to school, otherwise I would have got wet. When we used to study here, we could come here running as it’s just a stone’s throw away from our house,” said Tirkey, pointing to the old building that’s locked now. The new school, he said, was located about a kilometre away. The attendance in his class has considerably decreased since the school has been shifted, he says.
This is the story of many other children in Jharkhand ever since the Raghubar Das-led BJP government started the process of merging primary and middle schools under a Niti Aayog programme.
With the neighbourhood schools, opened under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, being closed down or merged — the state government calls it ‘reorganisation’ of schools — citing low enrolments of students and lack of teachers, there is fear of a significant increase in dropout rates in the state, where literacy level already remains one of the worst among all Indian states.
More than 6,000 primary and middle schools so far have been merged in the past two academic sessions — around 1,400 in 2016-7 and around 4,600 in 2017-18. Officials claimed that the merger was a part of a process of “re-organisation” of schools and was being done as per the guidelines issued by the Niti Ayog in order to optimise the resources in schools.
But the people of the state, especially in rural areas, are unhappy and have been protesting. There is so much public resentment over the move that all 12 BJP Lok Sabha MPs from Jharkhand, including two Union ministers of state — Jayant Sinha and Sudarshan Bhagat — had jointly written to the Chief Minister last month, requesting to keep the move in abeyance at least for a year. They fear the state government’s action could damage the party’s image as well as electoral prospects.
While the state government has not yielded so far, parents, especially in the villages, are angry because they say they are being forced to make a choice between either keeping their children uneducated or risk their lives to send them to school.As Jharkhand has a hilly and forest terrain, with rivers, wildlife reserves etc. in many areas, parents are cagey about sending their children to schools located far from home. In many cases, the primary school children have to cross busy highways to reach the ‘new’ schools. Also, some districts have Naxal presence, which is also a big cause of worry. Since the children usually walk to school, with transportation facilities not being available, safety is a major concern for most parents.
“When the school was next door, it was easy for us to track our child while he went and came back. Since it has been shifted to another locality, it has become difficult for us to keep a watch. This leaves us worried till the time he comes back from school every day. Though the distance of the new school is not so big, he has to take a long route due to the rainy season,” said Manju Oraon, Suraj’s mother.
When the school was in the neighbourhood, the children used to go happily. But now, because they have to walk a long distance, they don’t want to go to school and keep looking for excuses, she added.
According to Oraon, most of the men in the village are in a habit of drinking due to which the women have to take care of their children all the time, which had now become difficult.
Other women in the Kumbatoli village, too, want the old school to be reopened so that small children do not have to go far for studies. “When the school was within the locality, it was easy for us to send our children, especially girls. But now, it has become difficult for us to send them to other place. As that school was catering to a locality of around 60-65 households here, it must be reopened,” said the mother of Somari Oraon, a Class II student.
She had no option but to keep her daughter at home, she complained, because even the nearest Anganwadi centre was located two km away from the village in Palandu.
The old school building, abandoned since being closed down, is becoming a den of anti-social elements for gambling and drinking, the villagers said.