Six years ago the District Administration of Anantnag district in South Kashmir realized the necessity of providing a Primary High School building to the area of Hapatnar. The construction of an ordinary school building has not come to completion after the lapse of six years. How many more years will be needed nobody can predict. And in the meanwhile, the school going kids, about 300 of them have to remain huddled with more than 60 of them in one of the only three rooms of the present makeshift accommodation. This is inhuman in every respect. A school that cannot provide even sitting accommodation to the students and the teaching staff is not worth calling a school. It is slur on the name of school. In shivering cold and in hot summer, these unfortunate small boys and girls are made to suffer the bitter weather either way.
Paucity of funds is the usual rhetoric wherever we come across such situations and manage to enquire from the local authorities on spot what could be the reason for such a wanton disregard of minimum needs of students. The one sentence reply that they have to hear is paucity of funds. The school authorities said since they do not have adequate space they have to accommodate multiple classes in a single room. How can the students get full attention of their teachers when students of different classes are huddled together like cattle in one room? How can the teaching level of high order be maintained in such a situation? When the weather is drastically inclement, the authorities have no alternative but to shut down the school till weather improves. It is not known whether any responsible officer of the Education Department ever paid any visit to this school to see with his own eyes the dismal condition of this school building. Functioning in the jurisdiction of Zone Ashmuqam of the district, the shabby conditions of the school reflect the sorry state of affairs. A classroom is set up outside the building where teachers conduct the classes, said the locals. The school is presently working from shabby two rooms situated adjacent to a newly constructed two-storey building, which was commissioned in the year 2013. Locals of the area said that they have repeatedly raised the issue with the concerned officials but their pleas went unheard.
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