TIWN
Udaipur,June 21 (TIWN):Almost 78 days of classes till 16th of May 2014 were suspended and again more than 7-8 days are expected to be hampered. Parents, students and teachers are now worried about the ongoing activities in the most reputed institution of the undivided South Tripura District.
These are the ongiing incidents of Udaipur Ramesh Higher Secondary School, one of the premier institutions of Tripura. Indeed, regular classse are badly hampered and administration and School Education Deoartment, Govt of Tripura seem to be quite oblivious of the sufferings of the students. It is learnt that this year Udaipur Ramesh School could not conduct its 2nd Monthly Test because the school remained closed for from 30th March to 21st of May as the school was taken over by the Election Commission of India for setting up of EVM Strong rooms and Counting halls. (Again summer vacation began from 25th of April that continued upto 21st of May).
Due to such a long holiday period not a single day's class was held from 29th of March to 21st of May. To add to this Udaipur Ramesh Higher Secondary School remained closed (class work) from 1st of March to 28th of March as the school has been used by Tripura Board of Secondary Education(TBSE) as a venue for Madhyamik and H S(+2 Stage) examinations over the years. And it was learnt from the school authorities that even after the completion of the electoral process of 16th Lok Sabha poll, - neither administration nor the Chief Election Officer of Tripura has not taken any step to evacuate the rooms used as Counting Halls. Rather it has come as a bolt from the blue to the students and their parents as the school has once again been selected as the venue for the Strong Room and Counting Halls for the up coming three-tier Panchayat Election. It means that the claases and other regular activities will also remain closed for almost 7 to 10 days. Due to these, - parents, students as well as a large section of the teachers expressed their discontent. Speaking to TIWN correspondent over phone a senior teacher said," What the hell is giing on! Teachers can't take classes due to prolonged holidays; yet the leaders and even Chief Minister will put the blame upon them if the results are not on expected lines." The teacher said that the administration as well the School Education Department must consider to change the venue of Strong Room and Counting Hall from Ramesh School to elsewhere. A section of guardians alleged that even the School Managing Committee is somewhta to blame as the committee has not yet taken any measures to convince the administration on this crucial issue. The District Education Officer Gomati is the President of the School Managing Committee but even he is also playing a silent role in this matter.
The school with a capacity of 1200 hundred students find difficulties of accommodation as the construction of the new building of the school has not yet completed though it stated in the year 2010. On 14th December 2012, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar inaugurated the first portion of the newly built building of the school. During this programme the Chief Minister, who is former student of this school ,declared in presence of his teachers( those of his time) ," State govt will take utmost care to complete the total construction of the school building with in the shortest span of time." The irony of the fact is that not a single paisa has been sanctioned by the state govt to initiate the next phase of construction. Rather the condition of most of the rooms presents a serious. The old building( room no 27-32) is now in such a condition that at any time it can bring catastrophe leading serious injuries(photo annexed). Apart from this school is facing problems for the lack benches of students, equipments of the science laboratories, insufficient class rooms and many more. Apart from this the post of the Librarian remsins vacant for more than seven years.
Ramesh School has produced a galaxy students who are holding key posts at diffrent levels of the state govt. Even Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Tourism Minister Ratan Bhowmik are the former students of this school. The students, teachers, parents, former students and well wishers of Udaipur Ramesh Higher Secondary School expect that at least these two ministers will take some concrete steps to improve the over all condition.
For the last five years a large section of the people of Udaipur has been claiming that responding to the need of the hour the School Managing Committee will take initiative to convert the school in to an English Medium school as it will not only give opportunity to a maximum number of parents to avail the opportunities of getting their students admitted in govt run English Medium School(Ramesh School is a grant-in-aided school) but also will remove them from the exhorbitant pressure of tuition fees of the so called private English Medium schools of present days. Moreover, the society believes that Ramesh School has a number of competent teachers who can run the English medium platform of the school with immense success. Accordingly, on 18th December 2013 the Staff Council and Teachers' Council of the both section of the school(Primary & Noon Section) unanimously took a resolution to covert the school into English Medium from the academic session 2015. But according to TIWN source in the school - due to the complete inefficiency of the School Managing Committee the process has not moved an inch ahead. Our sources adds that in the recently held School Managing Committee meeting except one member, all opposed the resolution of the Teachers' and Staff Council. However, the SMC took a deplomatic style to send a letter to the Director of School Education Department asking his opinion. But that will only delay the process- both timely as well as practical in ground realities.