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| Govt primary school at Ker in Bhalwal block has 2 ReTs, 1 cook but "no" student | | Classrooms constructed over an year back are without roof | | Bharat Bhushan
DHANU IN BHALWAL BLOCK (JAMMU), Aug 31: Tarmurian is a morha in Dhanu village of Bhalwal block. While this sleepy hamlet is hardly 23 km from Bhalwal and about 15 km from the main Akhnoor road at Gour, it is virtually cut off from the adjoining villages for most of the rainy days of the year. Since the last Friday night witnessed heavy downpour, the efforts to reach here from the Gour side could not succeed for the next two days as landslides and uprooted trees blocked the narrow and bumpy dirt track, 8 km off the main Gour-Reasi road.
Due to the prevailing road conditions that of course make the drive risky, Zonal Education Officer (ZEO), Bhalwal, or other senior education authorities have not visited this hamlet since long, according to locals.
Tarmurian has a total of 18 houses, including three in its Ker mohalla where the walls of an under-construction Government primary school (GPS) stand testimony to the fact that there exists nothing in the name of a school. The structure, comprising two classrooms and a toilet, is without roof and floor.
The school has two Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) teachers -- Majida Bibi and Zahir Ahmad -- and a cook. Majida's husband Shamim Ahmad is too an ReT in a school at Doal near Rawta in the same area.
While Majida got posted at the GPS last year when the construction work was taken up on the land donated by her husband, Zahir joined the school in April this year. The woman was earlier posted at GPS, Kharan Kairi.
Shamim said the school had a strength of seven students but some villagers disputed his claim and alleged that he was lying as those shown as students were the children of his close relatives, who actually studied in private schools.
When this scribe went to the under construction school, there were neither staff members nor students. The thick grass, that surrounded the structure, blocked anyone's entry to the premises.
The efforts to meet any of the two ReT teachers failed. Majida's father Ghulam Mustafa said she had gone to a doctor for the treatment of her ill son.
He and some other Tarmurian residents, who were Majida's close relatives, identified the seven students studying in the school as: Fozia (7) and Haroon (5), children of Shamim's elder brother Shakil, Bilal Ahmad and Alia Choudhary, children of Mohammad Irshad, Shoiab Choudhary, son of Shakil, Amir and a minor girl whose name was not known to them.
A member of the Shamim's family, however, promptly corrected this list and informed that Fozia and Bilal were never part of the Ker GPS. The two were studying in a private school at Ranjan, not far from Dhanu. Other villagers said all the seven were studying in private schools at Ranjan.
"This is actually a family school. Earlier, they had also shown my son Idnan Sami, who is studying in Government middle school, Dhanu, as a student of the GPS. The record maintained by the school staff is fake," Khurshid Ahmad alleged.
The school registers and other documents were said to be in the custody of Majida who did not turn up till late in the afternoon. So, the record could not be approached.
Shamim's brother-in-law Shabir Ahmad volunteered to say that his daughter Arvish alias Tashiba (5) was also a student of the GPS. But his claim was proved wrong by the Shamim's family. He later said he gave "wrong" information only because he did not want the authorities concerned to close down the school, or shift it to some other place because it had no student, or had students from one family.
Suraiya Bibi of Ker mohalla said the school construction work was stopped by her family. "The school at present has its entrance from our side. We want it to be changed to other side but the Tarmurian residents are not letting it happen. If they agree to it, we will not create any hurdle in the completion of the school building," she added.
She said if the school entrance was not changed to the other side, there was every possibility of the students entering their unfenced courtyard and create nuisance.
Ker residents said they had not seen any student coming to the school in the last over an year.
Another local alleged that the school staff had been withdrawing salaries against the fake record maintained by them.
Most of the locals, who spoke to ET, refused to be identified as they feared the break out of clashes in case their names appeared in the newspaper.
When contacted over phone, ZEO Kuldeep Singh Langeh said during his 8-month tenure at Bhalwal, he had never visited the GPS at Ker (Gujjar Mohalla).
Asked to provide details about the staff strength and students, he said he did not know about it. "I will be able to tell you about the staff strength and number of students only after I go to office."
Langeh, however, claimed to have inspected middle schools at Dhanu and Tung. While going from Dhanu to Tung, there is only one dirt track that passes through Ker and Tarmurian. The Ker GPS is just by the side of this track but he did not stop there for a while to find out if it was actually functional, and if it had really any student.
The ZEO did not have any answer to these queries. Director School Education was not available for comments. |
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