A school goes downhill with government help

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posted on 13 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Since the century old SVSM UP Schools land belonged to a private party, the government is unable to repair the school...

PALAKKAD: Pudussery in this district has the distinction of having an aided school with three teachers and three students. The SVSM UP School, which boasts of a century old history having been set up in 1901, has come to this sorry pass due to a variety of reasons, including litigations, lack of maintenance, division fall and dismal facilities.
Its plight began with its takeover by the government. P K Jayaram, who was a teacher at the school from 1978 to 2004, says: "For the last 20 years, the management of the school has been with the government. Even in early 2000, there were 500 odd students of whom 300 were from the Scheduled Castes.'"There were also 21 teachers, including that for drawing and Sanskrit. The school possessed at least 1.20 acres of land. Since the land belonged to a private party, the government was unable to repair the school. If the school is constructed afresh, at least 1,000 students could be enrolled," he says.

The three teachers, including the headmaster, and three students who are left in the school have their own tales to tell. Headmaster K Sreekumar says: "The school was taken over by the government 0n December 23,1992 owing to the dispute between the successors of the school manager. Currently, the District Education Officer, Palakkad, is the ex-officio manager of the school.' No major repair or maintenance work has been done on the main building of the school since it is a pre-Kerala Education Rules (KER) building. The whole building lies dilapidated.