In Vaghalwada in Chhota Udepur, district administration officials are still scanning files to ascertain “pending requests” for construction of school structures across the district — days after news broke that in the absence of an allotted government primary school building, students are forced to attend classes in the courtyard of a private house.
Some 56 children of four sections of the Kaduliya Faliya Varg Jariyana primary school have had to attend classes in the house of a local villager.
The Gujarat High Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the situation through news reports.
On Friday, the division bench of Justices JB Pardiwala and NR Mehta of the Gujarat High Court directed the state government to “immediately undertake the construction of a new school building” in Vaghalwada, and also directed that an officer “not below the rank of additional secretary of the education department” to personally remain present before the court of the Chief Justice with an appropriate report in the case.
Among the pending applications is a primary school in Jariyana village, about seven kilometres from Vaghalwada, sanctioned in 2018, which has never seen a physical building being allotted.
According to headmaster Navalsinh Rathwa of Jariyana primary school, the administration did not allot a building even after the school had commenced on August 1, 2018. The school runs four simultaneous classes from the courtyard of a local villager Samdu Dhanka. “There are no benches, stools or tables or even a rug for students, who have to sit on the floor. Here, winters are extremely harsh, since this is a remote hilly region of the tribal district. Most of them do not even have full pants, forget woollens,” Rathwa said.
Chhota Udepur district had a total of 616 pending applications for the construction of classrooms and structures of government primary schools. While District Primary Education Officer SL Pawar remained unavailable for comment, District Collector S Charan did not respond to calls and text messages seeking a response from the administration
