Bhopal. Former leader of opposition and Congress MLA Ajay Singh has demanded to stop the merger process of government schools in the state with immediate effect. He said that all merger orders made in remote areas in violation of rules should be cancelled. By allocating budget on priority basis, dilapidated school buildings should be improved and vacant posts of teachers should be filled immediately.
Singh condemned the indiscriminate merger of government schools in the name of the government’s one campus, one school and Sandipani School policy. He said that under the pretext of merger, the government is actually closing down government schools in the state. The most fatal impact of this short-sighted policy of the government is on the education of poor students, especially girl students, in rural areas.
Singh said that the School Education Department was flouting the rules made by itself. There is a rule of two kilometer radius for merger of schools, but the ground reality is that schools located five to ten kilometers away are being merged with each other. Voices of protest are continuously being raised against this from the entire state including Sagar, Ujjain, Sehore, Satna, Raisen and Vidisha. In Ujjain, hundreds of girl students were forced to take to the streets to protest against this wrong policy.
Due to increasing distance between schools and frequent change of schools, girl students are facing the most problems. Due to lack of security and means of transportation, daughters of rural areas are forced to leave studies midway. This step of the BJP government, which gives the slogan of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, is going to push the future of the daughters of the state into darkness.
Questioning the government’s apathy, Singh said that the government has no action plan to repair the dilapidated buildings of government schools, meet the shortage of teachers and provide basic facilities like drinking water and toilets. To hide its failures, the government is choosing the easy way out by merging schools and locking them down.