Gaya: Despite lakhs being spent by the government to boost infrastructural needs, the Mansa Bigha Primary School in Khijrasarai, Gaya, has not been able to increase its student strength from four to five. Huge school, neat classrooms, teachers and food have failed to draw students in the face of stiff competition from the English medium schools. Established in 1972, it once had a thriving student population, but over the years, the numbers declined.
The school housed in its own two-storeyed building has spacious classrooms, desks, blackboards, and all basic amenities. But the craze for getting children educated in private English medium schools has kept parents away who do not mind shelling a big amount as fees, and making their wards study in stuffed classrooms with deficient facilities.
Due to this, the students and the teachers are uncomfortable in the school. While both the teachers express their eagerness to teach a class full of students, the kids await more of their ilk to play and study together.
“We want more children to come, so we can play and study together,” says Jahnavi, a fifth-grade student, who is enrolled in the school with two of her siblings. Besides these three, one more kid is also on the rolls. All the four students nurture dreams of becoming doctors, teachers and engineers.