Surat school

A primary school run by the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) that shut down has raised the ire of the opposition which has alleged discrepancies in its operations.

The outrage stemmed from the closing down of an English-medium school in the city’s Ambanagar area due to an alleged shortage of teachers.

The committee, however, cited a lack of students as the reason.

An opposition leader challenged this claim, arguing that this was not the case and expressed concern about other schools facing similar fate.

The school in Ambanagar is listed as school number 357 on the committee’s website. However, opposition leader Rakesh Hirpara claims there is no school at the site, and it has shut operations.

Hirpara claims he visited the school and added that “The Surat Education Committee has closed the school under the pretext of having no students, which is entirely false. Any school is established only after conducting a thorough survey of the surroundings. A survey was conducted before starting this school. However, the committee never assigned a permanent English teacher for this school. For about a year, the school functioned with just a single faculty, who belonged to the Hindi medium. This single teacher was solely acting as the teacher and principal, managing Classes 1 to 5.”

Hirpara further questioned, “The school has been closed, but where will the children who studied there go now? The school catered to children of labourers and daily wage workers. Where are these underprivileged kids supposed to go now? Is this not mocking the poor?”

He added, “As of July 31, 2023, the committee had only 36 permanent teachers for a total of 5,092 students studying in English-medium schools. These 36 teachers are not present all 365 days of the year, are they? What happens when some of these permanent teachers are on leave? The committee is not recruiting new teachers, which raises serious concerns about the future of the students.”