Four months ‘holiday’ every year!
Academic activities at Madan Gouri Government Primary School in Moulvibazar’s Kulaura upazila come to a standstill with the advent of monsoon every year.
Knee-deep stagnant rainwater is visible for at least four months both inside and outside the classrooms of the school covering 0.33-acre area.
Locals, guardians, current and former students of the school said the situation had been like that for the last 25 years.
There are 200 students currently enrolled in the school established in 1882. Its permanent campus was built in Madan Gouri neighbourhood in 1994 and flood had been hitting the premises bad every monsoon since then, according to the school management committee.
Saif Uddin, a local shopkeeper and an alumni of the school said, “I see clogged water submerging the premises every year. Classes remain suspended for four to five months then. During childhood, it felt like an unofficial vacation,” said Saif, who passed from the school in year 2000.
Such repeated disruption adversely affects the students and their performances, according to Saif. Johirul Islam, 14, a current madrasa student who passed PSC from the school, echoed him.
Nadir Mohammad, 75, of Madan Gouri village, said, “My granddaughter Samira Begum is in grade II. She has lost interest in studies. ‘What’s the point of studying? Classes will not be held,’ she says.”
Monir Uddin, whose daughter reads in class III, said that the school had been closed for about two months now. “The authorities could not come up any solution although 25 years have elapsed,” he said.
“We had to suspend the classes in mid-June to protect the students,” said Abdul Kadir, president of the school management committee. “The school premises are inundated every year as it lies five feet below the main road. Moreover, the Hakaluki haor surrounds the village.
“Some PSC candidates, however, are taking tuitions from teachers living nearby the school,” he added.
He told this paper that a proposal to build a two-storey complex for the school, which would house a flood shelter as well, had been put forth the authorities.
“Written applications have been submitted to the deputy commissioner, upazila education officer and the district education officer. I have visited the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education a couple of times in this connection, but there is hardly any initiative in place.”
When asked why no initiative was taken in last 25 years, Kulaura Upazila Education Officer Ayub Uddin said, “We sent reports on the overall condition of the school to the district education office every month. But they never took any step following those reports.”
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