Sans facilities, Mandapam school students exposed to vagaries of weather

Mostly, fishermen children study in this school which has been functioning without a proper building and other necessary facilities. They are forced to study in a temporary room with just an asbestos sheet as roof supported by palm wood. Though a new school building with fibre glass was constructed in 2008 it was completely destroyed in a gale in April 2012. 

No effort was taken to reconstruct the school building later. Now, all the students from class one to five are accommodated in a single room. Jeyaseelan, a teacher working at the school, said that former Ramanathapuram Collector, Nandakumar, had allotted Rs.15 crore for construction of a new building. But permission, for a concrete structure, was denied by the forest department as the land is under the reserve forest area. As a result, the building was not constructed and only some makeshift arrangements were undertaken. 

The students are still forced to sit on the sand. When there is a heavy wind, sand  enters the only class room. Though in the past, there was good enrolment, the numbers have now come down to just 23, said Jeyaseelan. A parent, on request of anonymity, said that apart from lack of school building there is no proper place for taking food. There are no toilet facilities too, he said. 

Students are served food under trees and they are always faced with  the menace of crows and dogs, said the parent. An official attached to Ramanathapuram district administration said that the former Collector had sought special permission to construct a concrete building in the Reserve Forest area but there was delay and the Collector too was transferred. Meanwhile, funds too were diverted and hence the building could not be constructed, pointed out the official.