Teacher picks students to keep school going

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If nine-year-old Padmanabhan and his younger sister Koteswari take off from school for a day, the four-decade old Jambakulam Panchayat Elementary School in Kammapalayam has no option but to declare a holiday as the siblings have been its only students for the last year.

To keep the school going, the lone teacher, Thyagarajan, picks up and drops the two students at a bus stop 4 km away from the school on his two-wheeler and also buys uniforms, books and stationery for them.

The problem of lack of students is not confined to this school alone. Several schools in remote villages of Vellore and neighbour-ing districts have less than 10 students each. With no fresh admissions being made to the elementary classes of these schools, which offer education only up to Class 5, the number of students falls with every academic year.

The Jambakulam school had four students the last academic year, but was left with none after one student moved to Class 6 and the families of the three others migrated.

So desperate was the school that it persua-ded the sweeper, Amudha, to admit her two children who were stu-dying in Krishna-puram, in Classes 4 and 5.

“The school teacher promised Amudha that all their educational expenses would be met and also to pick and drop them back from school,” says an officer of the education department, revealing that teachers in other panchayat elementary schools too are donning multiple roles to keep them functioning.

“At least 10 panchayat elementary schools in each block in the district have less than five students each,” says a teacher.