NHRC serves notices on Odhisa Govt, Union HRD Ministry

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New Delhi : The National Human Rights Commission ( NHRC) has issued a notice to the Government of Odisha through its Chief Secretary on the basis of a media report that a large number of government run primary and upper primary schools have been closed in the State due to less number of students.

The report has raised the issue of Right to Education of the young students mostly belonging to poor families of Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and other backward communities. The State Government has been given eight weeks to respond with a point wise reply to the issues raised in the media report  on January 21, 2018.

The Commission has observed that it appears that government schools are lacking basic amenities, the number of teachers is also not adequate.  Opening of private schools cannot be a solution for the shortcomings facing the students and the parents in the government schools. There seems to be extreme need for thorough study of the entire scenario by taking into confidence all the stakeholders to build a healthy environment of education at the primary and upper primary level to tackle the menace of dropouts, it said, according to an NHRC relaese.

Drawing attention to its suo motu cognizance of a similar media report on December 21, 2017, about the decision of the Government of Maharashtra closing Zila Parishad schools, the Commission also observed that without proper education at the primary level, the nation cannot think of well educated youth in future.

Accordingly, the Commission has also issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development through its Secretary for its response in the matter within eight weeks.

In 2016-17, as many as 828 government primary and upper primary schools were reportedly shut down in Odisha for having less than 10 students each. In 2014, a total 195 schools in the State with less than five students were served show cause notices by the government. The students and the parents, reportedly, prefer the residential schools, which have the facility of hostel and food for the students.

According to the media report, in the past year, 124 government schools were closed in  Rayagada district. This was followed by Kandhamal, which has lost 101 schools. The idea was to merge these erstwhile schools with a primary school located within a kilometer distance or an upper primary school within 3 km for which the State would provide transport facilities. It has been disclosed by one District Project Coordinator of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan of the State that another 268 such schools have already been identified for closure in Rayagada district which are awaiting only formal approval.

On the point of merging the schools, the officer concerned has, reportedly, stated that there are no such schools under consideration in the Rayagada district and it is also a fact that in case of merger, all the students from the erstwhile schools will not be able to join the new schools, due to geographical restraints.

The general grievance of the parents is that the teachers are not attending to the schools regularly.  Even the Anganwadi workers are not working sincerely in spite of several complaints made to the authorities.