Maybe this is the New Education Policy. In Kanaginahal, a village in Gadag district, Karnataka, nearly 82 students of the local government school from Class 1 to Class 5 are getting everyday lessons in grassroots governance, while the students themselves are crammed together in two tiny rooms, the building houses the gram panchayat office.

Several pleas have been made, but the authorities have yet to wake up to the plight of the students.

The school has only two good rooms. In one classroom, students of Classes 1, 2 and 3 sit together in a true democratic spirit. In the other functional room, Class 4, 5 assemble to glean knowledge.

And villagers stream into the panchayat office to fulfil their quotidian compulsions, getting a caste certificate, filling in another form, and several such needs.

The parents have appealed to authorities to shift the GP office and repair the dilapidated classrooms. The gram panchayat was shifted to the government school since it was earlier housed in a dilapidated building.

An official from the gram panchayat said: “We have brought this to the notice of our senior officials and are waiting for their response.”

Kanaginahal, which has a history of a strong cooperative movement now will have to come together to script a new lesson in collective action to secure the future of their children.