Baripada: In this season of exam, a group of Class X students in Mayurbhanj's Bangriposhi block had to take time off studies and travel 56km on Tuesday to demand regular teachers for their school.

For the group of 12 students of the government-run Ghatkumari High School, the 56km travel included a 20km walk. Despite board exams only a few days away, the students took the trouble to waste precious preparation time and travel to the district headquarters town to tell the district administration and the district magistrate that their school lacked regular teachers.

The students alleged that they were not being able to study properly as the school did not have any regular teachers. This, they said, was a major problem and they were not being able to prepare for the board examination.

Block education officer Dusashan Singh admitted that the school had no regular teachers for classes IX and X. Teachers are drafted from various schools regularly to take classes.

"Three teachers were deputed to take classes for them. One teacher on Monday for mathematics class, another takes care of chemistry, botany and zoology for two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) and the remaining three days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) are for arts classes," said Singh.

"The school has been upgraded to a high school recently and these students are of the first batch. They will appear for their matriculation exam beginning February 23," he said.

Singh said that laid down rules had to be followed for appointment of regular teachers and this was time consuming.

To ensure that the students did not miss out on their studies, he said that arrangement had been made to pool in teachers from neighbouring schools.

Educationists, however, did not agree with the process that the government followed while upgrading a school. An academic, who did not want to be named, said that the process was flawed and the plight of the students could well be understood. He said that the administration should plan the upgrade process in a manner that when first batch is ready for the class there should be regular teachers to take care of the student.

One should realise the desperation of the students who took the pain to travel to register their complaint, he said.

Official sources said while 19 students were in Class X of Ghatkumari School, nine of them stays in a hostel for tribal students. On Tuesday, around 4am the students came to Bangriposhi from their hostel. Three students joined the nine who stayed in the hostel. They walked for 20km and from Bangiriposhi they took a 36km bus ride to Baripada.

Lack of regular teacher has been a recurring phenomenon in the state. On December 3, 2015, the state government had admitted in Orissa High Court that 43,138 posts of teachers at government elementary schools across the state were lying vacant.

In an affidavit, the then department secretary Ranjana Chopra said: "The vacancies in respect of 36,302 regular assistant teacher posts will be filled up by the end of March 2017."