Urdu school sans Urdu teacher!

• Besides staff crunch the school is running in a dilapidated rented building
• The school lacks basic facilities like electricity, water, proper washrooms
• In some classrooms there are no benches, fans and lights

Hussaini Alam: In a case of severe apathetic attitude towards Urdu, the second language of State, the Urdu Medium Government High School at Shahgunj near Hussaini Alam suffers not only from lack of infrastructure and proper staff, but also absence of a regular Urdu teacher.

The Urdu Medium primary and high school has been running for more than three decades in a rented building and has not shifted even as the building turned into a dilapidated structure.

Except office room, all the classrooms run under asbestos roofing where cracks are seen widening day by day. Each of the classrooms appears to be a class from a remote village as infrastructure is nil with no benches, fans or lights in the rooms without any doors.

Moreover, the ill-maintained washrooms discourage students from using them. According to school staff, there are more than 200 students in both primary and higher sections.

While in higher section there are only 6 teachers, there is a need for Urdu and Biology teacher, besides a clerk, an attender and a watchman. Recently a temporary attender was employed with staff contribution to clean the school premises.

In the primary section, which is on the top of the office room, the students and teachers continue their classes under an asbestos roof with no electricity in an unbearable condition.

This room over the office is further divided into three classrooms with temporary partition. “There is only one permanent teacher for 1st to 5th class. Last week two teachers were appointed in deputation.

The principal has given many complaints about this to the higher officials of Education Department,” said a teacher, on condition of anonymity.

Temporary attender (aaya) lamented that due to heavy rains in the last few days, water seeped into classrooms due to damaged roof. “I have to remove all the water from the classrooms before children and teachers arrived,” she said.

While speaking to The Hans India, the students of higher classes expressed their keenness to have regular classes, but as there was no proper staff they were losing interest. Moreover, the near zero infrastructure has pushed them into double jeopardy.