The ambitious scheme of Haryana Government to educate the children of labourers working at brick kilns has failed to take off in Jhajjar due to the casual approach of the authorities.
After rolling out the scheme several months back, neither the Government teachers have visited the brick-kilns here to motivate the labourers for sending their children to the school nor do the authorities seem to bother about implementation of the scheme efficiently.
Moreover, not a single bus is plying here to transport the children of labourers from brick kilns to the school while the district officials said they do not have any provision of bus for the children to commute.
After withdrawing the teaching classes at the brick kilns, the Education Department had launched a new scheme to provide free education to children of the labourers some months ago. Notably, Jhajjar has highest numbers of brick kilns in this region.
“Under the scheme, the Government school teachers were to visit their nearby brick kilns to ensure the admission of every child of the labourers in their schools. The scheme had also a provision of bus facility to transport the children in case the school is located far from the brick kilns,” said an official of the Education Department.
Astonishingly, a visit to six brick kilns located Jahangirpur and its nearby villages by this correspondent presented a dismal picture of the scheme.
“last year, two teachers used to come here to teach our children but no one has so far contacted us this year. Since the school is faraway from here so we are afraid to send the children to school as they don’t know how to cross the road,” said Umesh of Nalanda (Bihar), a labourer at RBC brick kiln in Jahangirpur village here.
Another labourer, Krishan, a resident of Navada District (Bihar), said no labourer at the brick kiln was aware of the Government scheme facilitating free education to their children while they all wished to send their children to schools if the Government make transport facility available.
Shiv Charan, a labourer at BS brick kiln in Vaajitpur village, informed “As many as 46 children of 10 families are residing at the brick kiln and none of them go to school as we are not able to drop them to school. No teacher has approached us yet about admissions of our wards in the school but health workers use to come to administer polio drops to the children at regular interval.” Alaudin and Ashrudin of Assam, other labourers of the brick kilns, have also the similar tale to tell about the dismal show of the scheme. Chalitra, Sunari Devi, Shyam lal and Banke lal, labourers at HB brick kiln near Kot village here, said their wards used to go to school in Bihar last year but they had not been studying for last six months as they did not know about any school here and the facilities being made available by the Government.