Karkala: 55-year-old Ashram school revamped into boys' hostel
R B Jagadish
Daijiworld Media Network - Karkala (DV)
Karkala, Jul 24: The Ashram school, which has been functioning from the past 55 years near Bandi Math, has undergone a sea-change and turned into a post metric/professional boys’ hostel.
The school was established in 1958 for the benefit of students belonging to the SC/ST categories in Bandi Math.
The school could accommodate 125 students, but last year only 36 students got enrolled of which only four students were from backward class.
On 2 July, 2012, G S Shivaswami, director, Schedule Tribes Welfare Department, Karnataka government, wrote a letter to ZP CEO S A Prabhakar Sharma directing him to convert the school into a post metric/professional boys’ hostel, due to fewer Scheduled Tribes students in the school. He also instructed that the post metric/professional boys’ hostel be started immediately, as it would be helpful to the students. As per the directives, by the end of July, students were to be admitted as per rules and temporary additional responsibility given to the staff.
Accordingly, last year several students were shifted to Hebri Ashram hostel while the others were sent back home.
Presently, there is one permanent teacher while two are serving as guest teachers.
There is only one Ashram hostel existing in Hebri and 62 students from here are studying in a nearby government school. It won't be a surprise even if this too is shut down as there is no increase in the number of students.
Though the Ashram school was turned into post metric/professional boys’ hostel, the number of students has not increased. In the present term, there are only 15 students admitted at the Ashram hostel. Those who are residing in the post metric/professional boys’ hostel are getting paid Rs 850 scholarship from the government from which some amount is used for food. They are provided morning tea, lunch, evening tea with snacks and dinner at night.
Pushpa Anchan is serving as the hostel in-charge. “Presently, the number of students is very less. In future, it may increase and even non-veg food will be served on specific days along with basic facilities," she said.