Click to play videoJhabua (Madhya Pradesh): CNN-IBN's budget caravan is travelling to Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh, probably one of the most backward districts in the country. Here, one finds that while the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan scheme has built schools in the smallest of villages, it hasn't quite managed to bring in teachers.
In Kundla village primary school, CNN-IBN met Ranjini, a second standard student. She said that she was learning English, Hindi and Math at the school.
The district dropout average is 80 per cent, so the numbers are stacked against Ranjini and her classmates.
Add to that the fact that the 380 students in the school are taught by just one teacher. This is clearly against Government norms that prescribe one teacher for every 40 students.
The teacher at the primary school, Anton Meda says, "For the last five years I have been teaching here alone. I take turns to teach different classes."
He has hired a boy called Manish — at his own expense — to help him out. Manish supervises many grades at the same time, all of whom study in a single classroom — not for lack of space, but lack of staff.
In Jhabua, crores and crores of rupees have been spent on building new schools but while the students now have a place to study there are very few teachers to teach them.
Jhabua Zila School Superintendent, Prem Singh Sartan says, "Money has come in to build the schools from the Central Government, but the state government is supposed to provide teachers and they have failed to do the same."
The failure is tragic, because this is an opportunity to educate a district where only 4 per cent of the girls are literate and where many of these children are the first from their respective families to see the inside of a school.
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