Infra pangs at 63-yr-old Saketri school

Ishrat S Banwait

Tribune News  Service

Panchkula, February 22

The Government Senior Secondary School in Saketri village is housed in a 63-year-old building and lacks space. The number of rooms in the school is not enough and a few classes are held in corridors. There is no proper playground and whatever area was available for one has a concrete floor.

The students are taken to a nearby public park but as the principal Shalini Kapur informs, “It is a risky proposition. Although the park is just behind the school, there is no connecting gate and students have to go through a narrow approach road which is always a risk.”

The principal said an entry from the school to the park should be made keeping in mind the safety of children, if a playground cannot come up elsewhere. The school is not having a sweeper. Two of three posts of Class IV staff are lying vacant in the school after the sweeper retired in December.”

The principal informed that they have written to the department about the same but nothing has happened so far. The teachers and principal pool in to hire a private sweeper and the school’s cleanliness was thus maintained. The water being used for drinking purposes comes from a tube well and there was no water purifier for the same. “A generator is installed on the premises but it does not work and has never been used,” revealed the teachers.

The old building brings with itself some risks as well. The computer lab of the school is one dangerous place with a hazard waiting to happen. The walls of the lab where the wires connect to the switchboard are damp and water seeps in during rainy season. The condition is such that an electric shock or short circuit could happen any time in the room. Same is the condition of the mid-day meal room whose walls are damp and water seeps in whenever it rains. The staircase of the school had deteriorated and has just been repaired.