Cooch Behar, July 13: A single teacher to manage the school, dipping funds and a dwindling student population. The madarsa has nothing going for it.

There are a few more empty seats in each class, every day. The number of students has come down from 500 to 250.

The only thing that stands in the way of the imminent closure of the madarsa, set up by the maharaja of Cooch Behar in 1927, is the single-minded determination of Mohammad Asgar Hussein, the lone teacher and maulana of the institution.

Hussein, who joined the madarsa as an Arabic teacher in 1967, divides his time between English, geography, mathematics, science and history lessons from Class I to VI.

In the evenings, he prepares for the next day’s classes so that he can “do justice to each subject”.After the day ends, he sits down to write letters to the district inspector of schools, urging him to appoint teachers and help restore the madarsa to its former glory. This is practice, and the lack of response has done little to shake his resolve to open the eyes of the administration.

“There were five teachers in the madarsa. All of them have retired,” Hussain said.

“The vacancies have not been filled. There are two other madarsas in the district. Though teachers have been appointed from the school service commission, this institution has been ignored.” Daribash madarsa was well respected in the pre-independence period. Students would even come from Rangpur and Lalmanihat (now in Bangladesh).

The parents, however, are not moved by the plight of the madarsa and the moulana’s struggle.“I do not find any reason to send my son to a school where he does not learn anything,” said Abul Hassan, whose son studies in Standard IV. “I have a four bigha farmland and I feel he will learn more if he farms with me.”

“We go to school and play the whole day. The teacher rushes into the class, teaches us for half an hour and rushes out to teach the other classes after that. We know he cannot help it, but we do not learn anything at school,” said Ishita Seal, a class VI student. She had appeared for an admission exam in another school but had performed miserably. Her dismal performance prompted her father to withdraw her from the madarsa.

All these setbacks do not affect the moulana. “The madarsa is a legacy that has withstood the changes of time. I will continue to my struggle to keep it alive as long as I have the strength.”