Harmony at its best

As soon as the puja ends at Sree Sree Siddhi Gopal Akhra at Khanpur in Narayanganj town in the morning, around 70 to 80 children rush inside the temple to grab a seat on the floor.

Soon the temple turns into a classroom after the children sit in two groups beside the altar and two female teachers separately impart lessons on them.

They have been doing it since 2015 as the building of Khanpur LK Government Primary School, adjoining the temple, have become unfit for use, said Nepal Chakroborty, priest of the temple.

Kazi Salma Akhter, assistant teacher of the school, said due to an earthquake on April 25, 2015 cracks had developed in the walls of the building and it was declared risky by the upazila primary education office following a report on the condition of the school.

The report was submitted by the then upazila LGED engineer who visited the building after a few days of the incident. Later, the upazila primary education office directed the school authorities to search for a nearby place to conduct classes, she said.

The school authorities have been conducting operations of the school after the authorities of the temple agreed to allow them use the temple premises as their classroom, she added.

Around 70 to 80 students of class I and II are taught regularly inside the temple from 12:00pm to 2:00pm while 120 to 130 students of class III, IV and V are taught from 2:00pm to 5:00pm, said Salma.

The adjoining room of the temple is also used as a classroom as the space beside the altar is not enough for three groups, she said, adding, “Sometimes we have to send class-V students to the risky school building when the number of students increases.”

Though the school authorities are able to conduct their school activities in the temple somehow, students and teachers reiterated that having no classroom facilities -- such as blackboards, tables and chairs -- in the temple hampers regular study.

Lima Akhter, a class-V student of the school, said, “All of us have been attending classes and taking examinations in the temple since 2015. We find it difficult to attend classes here. We want our school to be repaired soon.”

“It is really painful to study on the floor. There is no blackboard here. If our teachers want to write something, they write on one of the students' exercise books and rest of us copy from it,” said Nisha Taslim, another class-V student.

“We cannot concentrate on lessons due to the noise coming from all over and during the rainy seasons, rainwater gets inside,” she said.

Contacted, the priest of the temple, said, “Though devotees in the temple do not get annoyed, but it is undeniably true that school activities hamper our puja and vice versa.”

“I hope the school authorities will construct a new building soon so that these children will not have to go through difficulties for a long time,” he said.

Soma Rani, mother of two students of the school, said, “I feel scared when my daughter who is a class-V student is sent to the risky school building with her classmates if there is no more room left in the temple. Besides, my children say it's also difficult for them to study in the temple.”

The school was established in 1929, but its two-storey building was constructed in 1993. Around 537 students from pre-primary to class-V study in the school in two shifts and each shift has five teachers and a headteacher, said Kazi Shirin Sultana, one of the headteachers.

The school's pass rate was 100 percent in the Primary Education Completion (PEC) examinations this year and five students got A+, Shirin said.

”I have been teaching in the school for the last 11 years. Since then, no development work has been done in the school,” Shirin said, adding, “Even toilets were built one year after I joined here.”

The government has provided laptops and projectors for our students, but those lie unused for lack of rooms. Teachers sit in the school building risking their lives but do not allow students to sit there fearing accidents, she farther said.

Umme Saleha, another headteacher, said, “There are a lot of problems. The school building is not only risky, but there wasn't sufficient classrooms for the number of the students it has. That's why we used to conduct classes in two shifts.”

“I have been teaching in the school for six years. There were times when plasters from the ceiling of the classrooms came off during classes. It got more risky when cracks developed due to the earthquake in 2015,” she said.

Contacted, Narayanganj District Primary Education Officer Syeda Mahfuza Begum said following an appeal by the school committee in 2016, the government sanctioned Tk 3 lakh for the repair work of the school building.

As the building was risky, the committee was advised to search for an alternative place to construct a temporary school. But the money was returned as no alternative places were found, said Mahfuza.

Jasim Uddin, president of the managing committee of the school, said, “After I took the responsibility couple of months ago, I have applied to all the government departments concerned for construction of a new school building.”

“We will send a letter to the local lawmaker regarding the issue for a quick solution. Until the problem is solved, we decided to continue our school activities in the temple,” he added.