Many 'roofless' schools in state

PATNA: Unbelievable though it may sound but that's life in Patna's 165 government schools: with no building of their own, they run either in the open or in single rooms borrowed from community centres or temple trusts.
In the countryisde of Bihar, the number of schools sans buildings is in thousands.
Of the 165 such schools in Patna, 100-odd are primary schools with considerable enrolment."On an average each primary school has at least 100 to 200 students,” an education official said, adding poor families usually send their little ones to primary schools as the kids get a sumptuous lunch as part of the ongoing mid-day meal scheme.
But teaching is compromised and learning is very limited in these single-room schools. "We are not supposed to fail any child and all of them get promoted year after year without even learning the basic alphabets,” a teacher said.
The 100 primary schools apart, 65 middle schools in Patna run in single rooms. The Rajkiya Madhya Vidyalaya at Jakkanpur is one such school. Around 100 students at this school sit in its borrowed one room. There are also nine teachers here who share the space with the children.
The room also has an open drain inside and a tubewell. Incidentally, a primary school also runs from the same one room at Jakkanpur, albeit in morning hours. State education commissioner M M Jha told TOI the government is aware of these schools.
"We recently mapped all government schools in urban Patna and found there are quite a few which do not have a building of their own,” he said and explained there haven't been adequate funds available for government schools in the past few years.
"There are many schemes for rural areas but few for urban areas. As a result we have now decided to source land for these schools on a priority,” he said.
Jha said since it was not possible to buy private land, the government has decided to source land from other departments. For instance, if a government hospital has spare land on its premises, it can be taken for a school. Such spots have already been identified and construction work would begin soon, he said.