Three teachers for 8 subjects

LAHAN, June 25: A school in Siraha has just three teachers to teach eight subjects at the secondary level, making a mockery of the people"s right to education.



Rajai Janaklal Secondary School in Balhi has teachers for mathematics, population studies and English and the school closes after just three periods at secondary level. “We pass in the other subjects through extra tuition and self-learning,” says class 10 student Pashupati Singh. “Nobody cares for our plight”, he adds.[break]



The students at the other levels don"t fare any better either as the school with 1,200 students—including 193 janajatis, 336 dalits and 336 girls—has just 10 teachers including three at lower secondary and four at primary levels. Students of class one don"t get to study much as each period is used up almost entirely in just taking attendance in the overcrowded classroom and making the students keep quiet.



“There used to be teachers for every subject but successive principals have taken away the teacher quotas, worsening the school"s plight,” says accountant at the school Hridaya Narayan Thakur, who doubles as a class-one teacher.




The school has an annual income of around Rs 300,000, largely from two bigaha of arable land, but has been suffering for lack of financial transparency. The school"s private income has been of no use as it has been pocketed by whoever collects the money.



Guardians had demanded financial transparency with former principal Jayabhuwan Lal Karna but he went on leave for one year and retired while still on leave, says Nanda Kumar Shah, a local. There have been six principals since then but none has stayed for more than three months. Each of them managed to get the District Education Office (DEO) to accept transfer requests.



The DEO has for years turned a blind eye to the sorry state of the school. Three teachers have been posted to the school by the DEO in the past couple of years but none has turned up at the school.