A four-member panel from National Commission for Protection of Child Rights talk to children at a village near the Posco project site in Jagatsinghpur. The panel is probing allegations of child rights violation. (PTI)

Paradip, July 5: Latest findings of the school and mass education department reveal that bunking classes by students is still on in government-run schools in the proposed Posco steel project areas.

Stuck in the web of resistance movement, the government-run primary education set-up in Dhinkia gram panchayat is apparently in an asphyxiating state.

The survey revealed that children were getting disoriented from studies with the anti-Posco movement causing distraction to them. The state of affairs has further nosedived ever since the children have been brought to the forefront of the ongoing human barricade stir. The trend still continued, though on a lesser scale, despite the government declaring the use of children as human shield as an act of illegality, the report said.

The school, caught in the intricate web of resistance movement against the Posco steel plant project, has come under the authorities’ scanner.

Two-third of the students enrolled in primary schools in this anti-Posco hotbed continued to skip classes even though the state government had put on hold the land acquisition process in these areas, said officials.“The scenario has improved to a certain degree in the past couple of days. Students are slowly turning up at schools. However, conducive academic environment still eludes these troubled villages,” said Akshyaya Kumar Swain, in-charge, district inspector of schools, Tirtol.

Acting on the directives issued earlier by the government, district wing of the schools and mass education department today began an on-the-spot assessment of primary education scenario in the trouble-torn villages such as, Dhinkia, Gobindpur and Patana. “Our focus is to find out the exact factors that have prompted children to skip classes. To restore the normal day-to-day academic activities in the government-run schools, there would be daily inspection of primary-level schools henceforth,” Swain said.

The villages, widely regarded as the nerve-centre of anti-Posco movement, have seven government-run primary schools with 795 students enrolled. The schools are Gobindpur upper primary school, Patanahaat primary school, Dhinkia primary schools, Gobindpur Harijansahi primary school, Dhinkia Maa Phulakhai upper primary school, Dhinkia Jogisahi-Bangalisahi primary school and Abhayachandrapur primary school.

The children’s attendance stood abysmally low a fortnight ago. However, things have changed for the better of late. Still attendance ratio lies lowly at 33.36 per cent. All government-run schools in Dhinkia had registered zero attendance for more than a week earlier this month. As the children had formed a human barricade at Gobindpur border, the schools wore vacant look.

“We visited the parents and guardians. Now, they are beginning to realise that skipping classes would be academically detrimental for their wards. Therefore, there has been some increase in attendance. We hope that things would brighten up,” said Golakh Chandra Pradhan, sub-inspector of schools.

Despite poor attendance, the teachers have been instructed to turn up at school and leave at the scheduled hour. “My sons are now going to Maa Phulakhai primary school everyday. But my children would join the agitation at Gobindpur once the district administration resumes the land acquisition process,” said Babuli Mohanty, a guardian from Gobindpur.