Vadodara: Every time strong winds sweep through Ambadungar village – a remote tribal village in Chhota Udepur – students of this primary school sitting on the floor instinctively look up, hoping their classroom will remain standing for another day. For the past eight years, a govt primary school in this remote tribal village has been functioning not from a concrete building but from a big makeshift shanty built with bamboo poles and cotton sheets.In a year when the Gujarat govt is championing the cause of zero dropout rates in schools through Shala Praveshotsav, more than half the students in this ‘school’ have dropped out in the last few years due to lack of facilities. The locals said that their village was allotted a school by the govt in 2018.“But the land to build the school wasn’t allocated. So, one of the villagers gave his land to build a temporary big shanty for the school. Children from first standard to fifth standard have been studying in the school for the last eight years,” a local said. When the school started functioning in 2018, about 50 children enrolled for it and attended classes regularly.However, due to lack of even basic amenities in the school made from bamboo, cotton sheets and walls plastered with cow dung, many students started dropping out and now barely 20 turn up regularly. The school was allotted two teachers but only one post is filled. District education officer Jaswant Parmar admitted that the school has been functioning from a temporary structure.“Efforts were on to identify a piece of land for the school. The govt has recently allotted a piece of forest land near the village. A team from Gandhinagar is expected to visit the place for inspection and once they give a go-ahead, work on building a school with two rooms and separate sanitation facilities will begin,” Parmar told TOI.
