Veernapally's train school carries bogies full of students

Sircilla: The Government Mandal Parishad Primary School in Veernapally village, Rajanna Sircilla district stands out of the box as it doesn't look like any other school.

It looks like a train rather than a school building, with compartments, windows and doors on one side and a platform on the other side. Students are so fascinated by the appearance, they come to the school without fail and feel happy to sit in classrooms like compartments in a train.

The classrooms have been painted like passenger compartments, the Principal office room looks like an engine and the veranda is like a platform, where students hang out. The administration had the school painted like a train in last winter by spending Rs 2 lakhs sanctioned to the school under Corporate Social Responsibility. The School teachers said since the classrooms were painted in the shape of the train bogies, students are coming to the school on time and rush to grab the seats.

Despite several efforts by the State government in the past, poor attendance of the students and dropout rates remain a matter of serious concern in the school. With the aim of attracting children to the school and introducing them to the pleasure of learning, the school was painted like a train, they explained.

"Now we watch the children coming to school happier than before and that's what we wanted," said the School Principal Gajan Lal, whose brainchild is behind the rocking initiative.

"Children are always fascinated by trains and enjoy train journey. In the same way, we wanted the students to experience the same delight while learning as well and hence adopted the idea," Gajan Lal explained, adding there has been remarked improvement in the attendance of students since he got the school's classrooms painted like a train. The principal said he discussed the idea with various artistes before giving it a concrete shape.

A local artist Chandu was assigned to carry out the transformation within a month before the school reopened. The artist resort to use train as his theme and went ahead with it. This kind of innovation certainly goes a long way to supplement education. 'Going by the trend of schools transforming into railway coaches, we can safely say the students will arrive at a wonderful destination,' said P Ranga Swamy, a retired teacher.

It should be noted here that the then IT Minister KT Rama Rao has taken special care of Veernapally Village, which comes under his constituency.