Students forced to walk through fields to reach school in Kothagudem

Students and staff of a government primary school in Kothagudem’s Gollagudem have been walking through muddy agricultural fields for 15 years due to lack of an access road. Teachers and villagers say the problem is affecting student enrollment and the school’s survival.

Kothagudem: The students and staff of Mandal Parishad Primary School (MPPS) at Gollagudem of Sujatha Nagar mandal in the district are facing a strange predicament.

The village falls under Kothagudem Municipal Corporation’s 21st division. Lacking a proper access road to the school, they have been forced to walk through muddy agricultural fields to attend classes for the past fifteen years.

---

It is said that in 2011, the residents of Gollagudem requested public representatives and officials to establish a school for their children, leading to the sanctioning of the primary school. But the villagers faced difficulty finding a suitable site for construction.

A village elder, Veerla Venkateswarlu, came forward offering to provide the land on the condition that the school had to be named after his wife Seethamma; officials and villagers agreed to this proposal. He was awarded the construction contract and completed the building.

He also promised to provide a piece of land for an access road at the time of the school’s construction but failed to keep his word. The individual and his family are cultivating cotton and paddy on that land every year, evading the commitment.

The landowner even executed a bond in the presence of the villagers, promising to provide the land for a road. Despite repeated requests from teachers and villagers, he remains indifferent, a resident of the village, Yellaboyina Venkateswarlu, told Telangana Today.

The school won the first prize in the Mathematics category in ‘Teacher Learning Material’ (TLM) complex-level competitions, received recognition for excellence in Telugu language teaching at the district level and saw its students secure second place in the ‘Bala Mela’ event.

Despite these academic achievements, teachers are striving to increase student enrollment. The school’s survival is in jeopardy as the difficulties faced by students are driving parents to send their children to private schools, said school teacher Sujatha, adding that the matter has been brought to the notice of the higher-ups but the problem is yet to be solved.

The school stands in the fields over six hundred metres from a local road. The land donor Venkateswarlu is said to have told the villagers that he intended to provide the land for an access road to the school, but his relatives have built a house on the way and he could not do anything.