The students of government middle school Laharwalpora here have to wade through knee-deep water to reach their school and attend classes as the school is submerged for more than a month now.
“The school got submerged a month ago after water levelincreased in Wular Lake due to incessant rains. The authorities haven’t doneanything, making the students suffer,” said Ali Mohammad Dar, a local resident.
Yasmeena Bano, a student of 4th standard said that whenstudents of other schools go to school wearing full uniform, shoes, and socks,they have to go to the school wearing slippers as the school is submerged.
“We have to wade through water and lift our salwar to reachthe school and attend classes. This is very unfortunate on part of the educationdepartment that even after passing of more than one month our school is stillsubmerged,” she lamented.
The students said that they are prone to infection as thewater around the school is muddy and polluted and they have to wade through itdaily.
They also complained of poor infrastructure and lack ofteaching staff in the school as the school has only 2 teachers for 70 students.
“We have to hold morning assembly in our classrooms as thereis no ground. We don’t have a washroom as the school has only three rooms. Weare made to suffer a lot because of the poor infrastructure in the school,”said another student, Afshana.
The locals urged the district administration to at leastconstruct a retaining wall or do earth filling in order to mitigate the sufferingsof their school going children.
When contacted, Chief Education Officer Bandipora, JavidIqbal, said that a plan is being charted out to resolve the issues of theseschools once for all but it may take some time as they have to constructretaining walls and in some schools they have to do earth filling as well.
“We don’t have an immediate solution at our hand for theseschools but we have identified these schools where we have to either constructa retaining wall or have to do earth filling,” he said.
“We have already submitted a detailed project report ofthese schools but it will take some time to resolve these issues,” the CEOinformed.