Villagers spring into action to save government schools from closure

Hyderabad: As happened with government schools in several villages of the State,Vattimarthy village in Chityalmandal of Nalgonda district was not different.

The State Education Department (SED) notified closure of the government schools in the village as part of rationalisation citing lack of required strength of students.

But the Education department had to bow to the will of the enlightened people of Vattimarthy village when they determined that they would not allow the department to close the Government Primary School and Zilla Parishad High School (ZPHS)which had been imparting education to their children for several years.

Several villagers had studied in these two schools and have special attachment to the institutions and cherish the fond memories oftheir school days.

But, everything started changing for them when private school buses from the nearby mandal headquarters Chityal zooming in and out of their village.

Speaking to The Hans India, village Sarpanch Ravinder said, "private schools have started mushrooming in Chityal. Private school buses come in the village during the summer.

The exercise was to lure parents to admit their wards in their schools. Offering English medium education is their Unique Selling Point (USP) for which several parents are ready to pay any price," he added.

This resulted in the strength of the government-run primary school dwindling to a mere 18. The fate of ZPHS was also going the same way. This situation caused much heartburn among the villagers who had studied in these two schools.

Local youth, village elders, members of the school committee joined hands with the teachers campaigning to enroll children in the government schools under Prof. JayashankarBadi Bata. Teams of villagers have knocked every door in the village to convince parents to send their children to the local government schools.

Initially, parents refused to budge as they wanted their wards to study in English medium schools only.

Ravinder said parents spend about Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 on each of their kids studying in LKG and UKG in a private school.

"Some of them were ready to spend a part of it for the development of the local schools and to admit their children.Their condition was that children should be taught in the English medium," he added.

Basic amenities at the school were improved with the donations from the villagers.

The District Education Officer (DEO) allotted two Vidya volunteers to teach the student in English medium. The local MLA Veeresham also came forward for the cause through Uddipanaprogramme.

On top of it all, the villagers are also prepared to raise the salaries of the volunteers from the funds that they have pooled in.

Now, the primary school has 200 and ZPHS has 300 plus students. In pollution- free environs students have plenty of space around to play.

Frequent incidents of accidents on the national highway are also worrying parents about sending their wards in the private school buses. Also, some of those studied in the primary schools have been getting selected to the State-run Gurukul schools.

Others from the ZPHS have been scoring GPA 9 and above in the SSC examinations.

To protect the two schools and to prevent poaching of students by the private schools the villagers held a Gram Sabha on Wednesday and unanimously adopted a resolution asking private school managements to ensure their school buses do not enter their village.