Photo Story: Who is worthy of education?

According to Census 2011, Kudara village in Bandipore district, Jammu & Kashmir is situated 15km away from the district headquarters. Despite the proximity, the literacy rate stands at 17.52%, out of with only 10.56% is females. The government boys' middle school here is being run in a shared single room, among the students ranging from kindergarten to class five. With 97 students in total, the premises has just two teachers to cater to all. Nasser, a class five student is often distracted in classroom as teachers are unable to dedicate complete attention to just one section of students. Moreover, the overlapping sounds confuse him, giving him a headache.Another school, at a walkable distance from boys middle school has worse challenges. The students here are studying under cracked ceiling, and have no rescue during rains. Rukhsana often hides herself in a corner to escape getting drenched in the rain pouring through her classroom ceiling.The parents allege that teachers push for a transfer from Kudara village due to lack of amenities, and hence their wards have no access to quality education. A teacher here on the condition of anonymity tells that they had to accommodate cooking mid-day meals too inside the same classroom. But a while back, the school authorities had heard about an LPG cylinder blasting in the classroom of another school. This prompted them to shift the set-up to the office."Have you ever seen anywhere mid-day meals being cooked in office?" she asks.In a neigbouring village, Chittibandy, all our government schools have been clubbed to a single building, due to increasing burden of the school building rent. To accommodate 300 students, the school resorted to tin shades mocking a classroom. Tawseef, a class seven student laments, "Fans were installed two days ago and when it rains is seems like we are in any encounter site, where will we go in winters? We are 4 schools studying here in one premises of school."Students from government schools of Kudara village in Bandipore district, Jammu & Kashmir complain of insufficient resources to attain quality educationThe students of at least five standards, ranging from kindergarten to class five share the same classroom due to limited teaching staff