A school building damaged during the devastating 2014 floods in Kakapora village has not been rebuilt yet, causing difficulties to the primary school children.
Without the main building of the government-run primaryschool at Pulwama district’s Ukhoo Kakapora village the students and teachersalike grapple with lack of space.
“The walls of the building caved in while the ceilingand windows got completely destroyed after it was hit by the floods,” saidBashir Ahmad, a resident.
He said that although the students were shifted to anothersmall building, their studies suffer due to lack of sufficient space.
Another resident said that the lack of infrastructure wasalso responsible for the significant fall in student enrolment.
“Many parents stopped sending their wards to the schoolas all the students used to be squeezed into two small classrooms” hesaid.
Most of the students in this non-descript village come fromfamilies of economically weak background; they are unable to move to expensiveprivate schools in the area.
“Our village comprises nearly 300 households and mostof us do menial jobs to scrape out a living. For our children it is schoolingeither at the same place or no schooling at all,” said Ahmad.
Residents have appealed the authorities for rebuilding thedamaged school and construct a boundary wall around it.
Chief Education Officer Pulwama, Nasim-ul-Gani, however,said that department had abandoned the old school building and was planning todismantle it.
“The school is functioning smoothly in anotherbuilding,” Gani said, adding construction of a boundary wall is part ofthe plan for next year.