Balcony turns into classroom in Jashore

In the balcony of a residential building, lies a bed. On the bed, exhausted students fidget and stretch to keep themselves from falling asleep.

Sitting on the other end of the bed is Moushumi Islam, their teacher.

This is the scenario of the Ramnathpur Government Primary School, or what remains of it. It is now a makeshift educational institution with classes being run out of the balcony of a vacated residential building.

Azizur Rahman, the owner of the house and also the former president of the school, decided to let the teachers run all academic activities in this house after the main building of the school was declared risky in April this year.

Originally established in 1989 at the Ramnathpur village under Jashore's Manirampur upazila, the school was upgraded to a three-room building in 1996.

Two years ago, the building was submerged by flood water. Later, the plaster of the building started coming off the ceiling when cyclone Fani hit the region.

"Though the house is a bit far from the original school building, we are running academic activities here as he main building of the school is at risk of collapse," said Moushumi Islam. 

"We find it very difficult to study on the bed as there are no benches to sit on. As the main school building has been declared unusable, we are afraid to go there," said Orpona Hajra, a third grader at the school.

Speaking to The Business Standard, the Head Mistress of the school Fatima Begum said, they had informed the upazila and district education officers about the issue.

"The former president Azizur Rahman wants to ensure that the academic activities of the school keep continuing. He extended his support by letting the school run its activities in his building," she added. 

Currently, the Ramnathpur Government Primary School has a total of 215 students.

According to sources, on April 15 this year, school authorities sent an application through the primary education officer to the authorities concerned, asking them to declare the building as abandoned.

Although some officials of the upazila engineering office have visited the school, they have not declared it as abandoned yet.

On the other hand, the current President of the school Shariful Islam Shahin said the authorities have assured him of putting the school's name in the list of new buildings to be constructed next year.

"We have sent the declaration of abandoning the building and documents requesting the construction of a new building to the authorities concerned. But I am not aware of the progress of this appeal," said Gausul Azam, an official at upazila engineering office. 

Upazila Primary Education Officer Soheli Ferdous hoped funds would be allocated for a new school building in the next fiscal year.