BADIN: Future of over 400 students of the Tando Bago Primary School for Boys hangs in the balance as the district administration has been trying in vain to persuade the principal of the historical Mir Ghulam Mohammad Khan Talpur Higher Secondary School to accommodate them.
The headmaster of the primary school has declared ‘indefinite holidays’ after its building was declared dangerous due to its dilapidated condition.
Badin Deputy Commissioner Rafiq Ahmed Qureshi last week ordered the closure of the primary school and advised its headmaster, Shaukat Hussain Qambrani, to make arrangements for the transfer of a total of 422 students to the higher secondary school. The headmaster accordingly declared indefinite holidays and started completing formalities.
Tando Bago Assistant Commissioner Mohammad Hussain Lund and Assistant District Officer (Education) Mumtaz Ahmed met Prof Dr Mohammad Ismail Memon, the principal of the higher secondary school, and requested him to accommodate the students. They also suggested that an evening shift be started at the school and the duration of both morning and evening shifts be curtailed to facilitate the academic process.
However, without rejecting the DC’s order, Prof Memon pleaded that the higher secondary school had been built by Mir Ghulam Mohammad Talpur in 1920 and since then its teachers had been producing excellent results owing to full-time attention to the limited number of students being enrolled at the institution. He referred to the recent matric results, pointing out that the school maintained the pass percentage of 98.
He apprehended that accommodating several hundred students of the primary school and reducing the duration of academic activities would only destroy the high standards maintained by the school. Students of both schools would suffer academically, he said.
He advised the officials to find some other solution to the issue.
Meanwhile, parents of the closed schools also opposed the district administration’s move. They told the media that there seemed to be no plan to rebuild the building of the primary school. They recalled that the town’s girls school had been closed some seven years ago on the same grounds but was never rebuilt. The abandoned land of the school had now been occupied by land-grabbers, they observed.
They apprehended that the motive for the closure of the school without any suitable arrangement to continue the teaching process could be to make them to opt for some private school or take out their children. He suggested that the education department and district administration accommodate the primary school students in the mono technical institute within the town till the reconstruction of the dilapidated building. They also called for reconstruction of the girls school at the earliest.
Mir Mehboob Ali Talpur, the grandson of Mir Ghulam Mohammad Khan Talpur and chairman of the school’s Parents & Teachers Association, told Dawn the district administration’s move seemed to be a conspiracy against the higher secondary school. He vowed to resist the move.
He said that students 20 sections were at present accommodated in 11 classrooms due to congestion while four other classrooms were under construction with the financial support of Iran.
Published in Dawn, Aug 10th, 2014
