School kids kept standing under the sun as state minister shows up for 5 mins
Some 130 children of Vatapara Non-government Primary School at Durgapur union of Aditmari upazila were kept standing in the scorching sun on Sunday for as long as six hours to welcome the state minister for primary and mass education.
The practice of making students wait on roads to welcome dignitaries continued though the government in December 2009 firmly instructed all educational institutions to stop this.
On Sunday, the authorities around 10:00am lined up the kids in front of the school and they were there until around 4:00pm when State Minister Motahar Hossain finally showed up and spent less than five minutes at the entrance.
Guardians, meanwhile, got angry and some of them even took their children home.
Nur Haque, a guardian, said the teachers and school managing committee told them that kids would have to wait for only half an hour, but they stood for more than five hours.
Some guardians complained that their children could not have lunch or take bath in time and some of them even fell sick because of the hot weather.
Khairun Akhter, a student of class-V, said the teachers and managing committee president asked them to stand on the road to welcome the minister.
Kazi Mohammad Solayman Alam, managing committee president, said the school got academic permission in 2001, two years after its establishment. Since then, seven people have been volunteering as teachers in the school.
“For the nationalisation of the school, we invited the state minister. The minister was late due to other programmes at Durgapur union,” he added.
The school headmaster, Sirajul Islam, said local AL leaders confirmed that the minister would come to visit the school by 12:00noon.
“We had to wait, as the minister was late,” he added.
Aminul Islam, secretary of Durgapur union parishad Awami League unit, said “We did not ask the kids to wait on the road.”
It was not a scheduled programme. “We told them [school authorities] that the minister would visit the school on his way to the district town after attending functions at Durgapur,” he added.
The headmaster said the state minister did not make any promise regarding the nationalisation issue. “The minister did not even enter the school and talked for less than five minutes on the road.”
Courtesy of The Daily Star
