Since June 13, a mystery has been haunting the students of the Government Primary School at Muntha Maamidi village, nearly 40 km away from Maredumilli in the Alluri Sitarama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh. The mystery is about the absence of any teacher in their school since it reopened recently.
Their parents and villagers of the naxal-hit village, belonging to the Konda Reddi tribe, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), too are longing for a teacher so that their children could continue their education.
Like all others, Class 3 students Sandula Eswarabai and S. Sai Durga are mistakenly identifying every visitor to their village as their ‘new teacher’, for whom the entire tribe had been waiting to open the school in the new academic year.
Sandwiched between hills, the school has everything necessary including a fence, children’s park, and toilets. But teachers are conspicuous by their absence.
“We want to see our teacher. He or she has not seen till today [June 7]. We do not know who our new teacher is,” say Sai Durga and Eswarabai, on the way to clean utensils at their homes. The duo will have to be promoted to Class 4, when the new teacher arrives.
Last year, the school had 28 students and two teachers, who were transferred as part of the recent general transfers, according to villagers. The nearby government school is at Chavadikota Panchayat Headquarters, an arduous 3-km trek away.
“Our village has 60 children under the age of 10. As many as 28 of them are in the 5-10 age group. Since June 12, the official date of reopening of government schools, even a single teacher has not been appointed to our school”, says S. Pratap Reddi, a Village Volunteer.
Deaf ears
“We have appealed to the officials concerned for the appointment of a teacher and reopening of the school. But there has been no word on it so far. We do not have an Anganwadi teacher too,” added Mr. Pratap, who is worried that the children have been losing access to nutritious food and mid-day meals.
While the children are busy playing during the day, they never fail to keep an eye on new visitors, in the hope that it may just be their new teacher.
Unaware of the transfer of their teachers, Ketchela Chinnammi and S. Diwakar Reddi shrugged: “We do not know why our teachers are not opening our school these days”.
When contacted by The Hindu, Assistant Tribal Welfare Officer Ch. Rama Tulasi had no idea whether teachers were appointed to the school. On the fate of 28 Konda Reddi tribal children’s education, Ms. Rama Tulasi said: “Irrespective of the reason, those who are not attending school will be designated as ‘school dropout’. They will be enrolled in school after completion of the ongoing ‘dropout’ survey.”
Another officer, Maredumilli Mandal Education Officer Tatabbai Dora is clueless about the whereabouts of the the village. Mr. Dora said, “Teachers are not willing to work in hilly areas, citing the many challenges. Now, as many as eight schools in the hilly areas are ‘teacher-less’ in Maredumilli Mandal.”
As per government policy, schools with less than 10 students are closed and students would be enrolled in the nearby schools. For schools with more than 10 students, a Cluster Resource Person (CRP) is appointed on a contract basis.
The CRP is a local person who desires to work in a school of his/her choice, with a motto that the local community should not be deprived of primary education.
In the naxal-hit tribal pocket of Munta Maamidi, nobody knows when their school would get their much-awaited teacher.
