http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/bhubaneswar/Forty-students-flee-Kandhamal-hostel/articleshow/4882936.cms
Forty students flee Kandhamal hostel TNN 11 August 2009, 10:56pm IST BERHAMPUR: Close on the heels of 66 girls running away from a state-run SC/ST residential school in Gajapati district after accusing teachers of casteist taunts, alleged lack of infrastructure has forced 40 students to desert a government school in Kandhamal district. District officials said the students of an upper primary school in Daringibadi block's Pakalamaha village ran away on Monday because of alleged lack of teachers. The students were housed in a "low-cost hostel" run by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, Baliguda. The school is managed by the school and mass education department. Collector (Kamdhamal) Kishan Kumar said the district welfare officer has gone to Pakalamaha to monitor the situation and efforts were on to persuade the runaway students to return. The two incidents along with the escape of 22 girls from a residential school in Kandhamal district's Lingagada a fortnight ago has prompted the government to ask gram panchayats to monitor infrastructure in SC/ST schools across the state. "The government has directed all block development officers to ensure supervision of SC/ST schools by gram panchayats. The BDOs have been instructed to convene meetings between panchayat representatives, headmasters and hostel superintendents within the next 15 days to discuss problems at the schools," SC/ST welfare department director R K Choudhuary said. "There are provisions in the Panchayati Raj Act that empower rural representatives to supervise such schools. But so far, gram panchayats have not bothered to do so. This is one of the reasons why so many complaints of mismanagement are reported from government-run schools in tribal areas," Choudhuary said. "When elected representatives at the villages monitor the management of schools and discuss the problems faced by teachers and students, then we can take effective steps to improve the situation," the director said.
