PATNA: Two years ago when Akhileshwar Pathak joined a government school in a village in Bihar’s Saran district as principal, he was shocked to see its condition.
There was no boundary wall, no toilet for girls and no drinking water facility. Today, the school has facilities which its reputed urban counterparts can boast of.
The 55-year-old principal is a selectee, among 47 like him across the country, for the National Teacher Award-2020 to be given away by President Ram Nath Kovind on the Teachers’ Day, September 5.
“We need to change our outlook and sincerely make efforts to seek people’s cooperation in building our society. Complaining and carping about shortage of funds wouldn’t help,” said Pathak.
The government-run Chanpura-Bhaismara Middle School, located in Garkha block, is now a smart school with facilities built with the contribution of local people. The school has a dining hall, is equipped with CCTV cameras and biometric attendance system for the students.
Pathak says days after joining, he hired a public addressing system with a rickshaw and made a public announcement in adjoining villages inviting the locals to a meeting in the school.
“The people turned up in good numbers. I appealed to them to help in renovating the school. They voluntarily contributed Rs 98,176 and I donated Rs 21, 000 while my colleagues came up with Rs 5,000. Various renovation works started in the school,” he said.
“Girls skipped the school largely because there was no separate washroom,” recalled Pathak. The first thing he along with others did was to get four toilets built, two each for girls/women teachers and boys/male teachers.
The facilities were ready in “not more than a fortnight”, he said. The number of students also increased from 535 to 773 and the attendance of girls rose to a hundred.
Pathak then got the CCTV cameras installed and started arranging other facilities including LED screens, and biometric attendance system for students.
“The school now has a strong boundary wall along with all systems available to impart education through projectors on all subjects through short films covering the syllabus content-wise,” he said.