TOI Impact: Flood-hit teachers to get alternative classrooms

A video showing a teacher using an inflated tyre tube to cross the swollen river has gone viral on social media

BHOPAL: Schoolteachers left stranded by the swollen Baisali river in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhind will no longer have to risk crossing it on inflated tyre tubes to mark e-attendance, after the school education department arranged alternative classrooms and pushed for a permanent bridge.Alternative teaching venues were identified on the same side of the river where most teachers and students are stranded, and classes began there Monday, within hours of a TOI report and a viral video from Nadrauli and Sumer Singh Ka Pura in Babedi panchayat.Heavy rain had made the usual river crossing impassable, forcing teachers to ride across on inflated tubes. The footage triggered public outrage over their safety and disruption to students’ schooling during monsoon.“We cannot allow children’s studies to be disrupted or staff to risk their safety,” district education officer Sudhanshu Dwivedi told TOI. Teachers unable to mark e-attendance because of flooding will not face any penalties, he added.The attendance point will be temporarily shifted to the alternative site.The DEO has written to Bhind district authorities seeking approval to build a bridge across Baisali. The proposal, forwarded to directorate of public instructions in Bhopal, seeks surveys, clearances and cost assessments in coordination with the public works department.

The collector’s office has been asked to examine the bridge’s feasibility, cost and timeline.Residents welcomed the stopgap measure but said the bridge is the real fix. “Every monsoon brings the same problem. Children miss school and teachers risk their lives,” a Nadrauli resident told TOI.Parents in Sumer Singh Ka Pura said many students had fallen behind during earlier rain because they could not cross the river. They hoped the proposed bridge could break the monsoon cycle of isolation that has turned a routine school commute into a dangerous river crossing.