Overcoming all obstacles, the single-teacher girl's school in Jharkhand has performed better than many other schools with 93 pass percentage in Class X Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) Board examinations.
Out of the 29 students who appeared for the matriculation examination this year, 15 passed with first division, nine with second division and three with third division. Meanwhile, the answer papers of the two students who could not make it have been sent for evaluation as the school administration is not satisfied with their results.
Interestingly, the Project Girls High School at Macha in Patamda Block of Jamshedpur, catering to mostly tribal and marginalised students, had only one teacher who joined in 2019 to teach biology, but had to teach all the subjects between January 2021 to January 2023 as there were no other teacher available there.
Though three more teachers were deputed in the school in January this year, two of them went back within a month, while the third one is on deputation and is still teaching there. "Students of class IX and X were being taught by the only teacher, Priyanka Jha, in the school in the only classroom available there. All 86 students of Class IX and X used to sit back-to-back in the same classroom," informed a student Sanju Mahto, who has secured 91 per cent and topped in her school.
Principal Priyanka Jha used to teach them all the subjects except Math as she was not comfortable with the subject. The principal would invite one or other government officials or trainee Bachelor of Education (BEd) students on a regular basis in the school to teach them Math. "In addition to that, we used to study at home what we were taught in the classroom on a regular basis," said Sanju Mahto.
They could have scored much better and could have earned a place among the state toppers had there been more teachers in her school, she added. "But, now I will work harder in the days to come and try to fetch more marks in the intermediate level," shared Sanju Mahato, who is the daughter of a farmer and wants to be a doctor in future. She has no option but to seek admission to Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School in Sundernagar to pursue her intermediate studies.
Another girl Reena Mahto, who secured 89 per cent marks in Class X examination, also asserted that she had never thought that she will ever reach 89 per cent marks and gave all credit to the principal Priyanka Jha for the support extended by her.
District Education Officer (DEO) Nirmala Kumari Barelia gives credit to the joint effort of the teachers and district administration as the Deputy Commissioner provided model papers for the students ahead of the examination and made them practice it regularly. Special online classes were also conducted for these children in order to clear their doubts, she added.
"It's good that despite limited resources, the girls have performed better. I am certainly proud of their achievements," said Birulia.
The DEO, however, contradicted that the school has only one teacher as she had been sending teachers from other schools at least twice a week, she said.
Notably, according to the data available with Unified District Information System (UDIS) for Education, out of the total of 35438 schools in Jharkhand, 20 per cent of them are single-teacher schools.
