KOCHI: On the day when all the students in the district came back to schools where the buildings have been renovated or new ones built, 39 children studying in the Government Lower Primary School, Pallilamkara at Kalamassery, had to make do with the 70-year-old thatched building with no upgraded infrastructure. However, there is something unique about the school. All the students studying here belong to families of migrant labourers hailing from all over the country.
“There are students from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Sikkim,” said Manaf P, a social worker. In a way you can call this school a mini-India, he added. “There is even a student who hails from Nepal. So it will be safe to call it an international school. But, alas, it lacks international facilities,” said Manaf. “Since the school’s formation till seven years ago, a good number of native students studied here. However, over a period of time, it saw a rapid drop in the number of these students,” he said.
The situation is such that today, the school has no native students, he added. He said the school has been functioning on borrowed time due to the help sourced from good samaritans. “The school was started to meet the educational needs of the children of the workers and staff of HMT and other public sector units operating nearby. But over a period of time, many families left the area as the glorious days of HMT began to wane,” he said. According to him, it also didn’t bode well for the school when HMT opened its own institution.
“We have been knocking on the doors of Kalamassery municipality seeking financial help to upgrade the infrastructure of the school. However, it seems very unlikely that the civic body will set aside around ` 1 crore to construct a new building. The municipality might not be able to spare such a huge amount,” he said.
According to him, it is the state government that needs to step up to help the school. “If only the government took the initiative to construct a new building, the school would’ve seen an influx of new admissions,” he added. Another issue that the school faces is the lack of a headmistress or a headmaster. “The school at present has only four teachers. Nobody wants to come here,” said Manaf.