From Wednesday, it is back to their own school for more than 1.69 lakh students in the border villages falling within 10 km radius of the international border with Pakistan.
The decision to reopen the schools from Wednesday, October 5, came after a substantial numbers of villagers refused to move out if their homes despite evacuation orders, while those who left have decided to return to their homes.
“The government schools (primary, high and senior secondary), falling within 10-km radius of Indo-Pak border, will be reopened from October 5 as per general timings,” read the orders by the state Education Minister Daljeet Singh Cheema.
Cheema, in a press statement, added that the decision to reopen all the schools of the border villages was taken considering the studies of students.
Punjab Education Department had ordered closure schools and other institutions in the border belt, till further orders, following surgical strikes by the Indian Army on Pakistan. In all, the government had ordered evacuation of nearly 1,000 villages within 10-km belt of 553-km international border that Punjab shares with Pakistan.
Punjab’s six districts — Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Pathankot — shares border with Pakistan.
The department has also made alternate arrangements to provide education for students of border districts displaced from their native places and living in relief camps by making arrangements in the nearby schools.
Students, who have not shifted to relief camps but have gone to their relatives’ place, were also allowed to attend nearby schools without any formal admission or fee depositing. Seeing trivial number of students opting for alternate arrangement and no actual movement alongside the border, the Department has decided to reopen the schools “so that students’ education doesn’t suffer”.
“We don’t want students’ education to suffer and that was we had made alternate arrangements.
But villagers are not ready to leave their homes and decided to stay put. Also considering that there was not much movement alongside the border as of now, we have decided to open the schools in border areas,” a senior official of the state Education Department told The Pioneer.
The closure of total 1,332 schools, including primary, high and secondary falling within 10-km radius of the international border with Pakistan, were ordered by the government on September 29. Of them, 51 schools fall in Amritsar district, 81 in Ferozepur district, 73 in Fazilka district, 77 in Tarn Taran, among others.