Pune: To enable students to attend school from remotest areas of Maharashtra, the Department of School Education and Sports will be starting a transport facility for over 4,000 children of 917 habitations across the State which have schools at a distance of more than 3 km.
This order will benefit as many as 4,875 students in the State, informed Deputy Secretary of School Education Department Rajendra Pawar.
The Maharashtra Primary Education Council had called for data on distances between schools and habitation/settlements from the district administration.
The government has identified around 1,617 such children so far, who travel to upper primary schools beyond 3 km. These remote areas are based in 21 districts of Maharashtra.
Around 12 remote areas in Pune district itself has been identified where students cover distances between 5 km to 15 km. Around 11 students from Junnar taluka-- 10 students of Mandave village travel 15 km to school and one student of Kopare village covers 13 km to attend school. While one student from Devghar village of Mulshi taluka travels 12 km to school. Pawar has cited five reasons in the notification for the transport facility which are... no school available, specific medium school is not available, a school from Std V/VIII is not available, children from extremely deprived communities (distance from school is far) and rationalisation of schools.
“There are ‘padas’ (habitats) in villages where vehicles can’t even reach. The road conditions in several remote areas aren’t favourable for cars to move, then facilitating buses will be more difficult especially during the rainy season when water gets logged in parts of the villages and roads get destroyed,” said education activist Mukund Kirdat.
“Even though there is a vehicle available to the students, parents will still avoid sending them to school considering the distance of it. Some parents work as labourers who will not be able to pick and drop the students from the bus stand, this will again defeat the purpose,” he said.
Kirdat also stated that the State government’s ultimate aim is to close down schools which have less number of students.
“Under the RTE Act, there is a mention of neighbourhood schools and after the previous government had shut down over 1,000 of schools, it was challenged that there are no transport facilities for students to travel to faraway schools. So, to avoid the challenge this time, the government might have taken up this initiative. The provisions under the Act also states that the government should provide hostel facilities for students where the schools are available,” Kirdat added.
