School children picketed the Mandal Education Office, and sat in front of their own schools on Wednesday at various places in the Anantapur and Sri Sathya Sai districts seeking the continuation of running of their schools in the same buildings in their villages instead of merging with high schools about one kilometer away.
Ironically, the State government has chosen to close down many primary schools in which it had spent lakhs of rupees under the Mana Badi - Naadu Nedu scheme to build new classrooms and toilets. Still, they are being abandoned, said Communist Party of India (Marxist) district secretary V. Rambhupal. “The government has identified 711 government schools to be closed and merged with nearest high school for children studying in Classes 3 to 5, which will lead to a drastic increase in the dropout rate,” he explained.
The district already has a lower literacy rate of 63.6% compared to the State average of 67.4% and women’s literacy is still low at 54%. The literacy among the SCs is 56.3% and that of women among them is just 47.7%. This merger will further distance girls and boys from schools as many of them at that age cannot walk to the schools now about 2 km away.
At various places in Sri Sathya Sai district also children emotionally sat in front of their schools as they were being sent by the teachers to the schools mapped for them and at Thimmasamudram, children stopped traffic for some time near Penukonda and at Madakasira Mandal Education Office, the school children sat on a dharna.
