::: Star Insight :::

Guru Griho

From Sunamganj
Tengratila High School Now 43

Iqbal Siddiquee

Located on a small hillock of the remote village is Tengratila High School. The small village Tengratila which was fairly unknown till a few years ago came into prominence after it gained the dubious honor of a gas well planted by a Canadian company blew up in 2006.

In 1965 some locals got together and established the Tengratila Junior High School in Chhatak thana (this area is currently under Doarabazar upazila) to facilitate primary schooling for children in that area. Moulavi Abdul Quaiyum came forward with a big helping hand. He donated the land on which the school was built, says the school's headmaster Farid Uddin Ahmed. A number of locals also offered help to get the school up and running.

In 1986, the school incorporated a high school. By then it was the best high school in the upazila, according to the headmaster. At present, the standard of the school is not bad. This year 3 students from the school got GPA of 5.0 while more than ninety per cent of the students came out with passing grades.

Right now the school has 366 students studying under 10 teachers. For the last 2 years the school has been suffering from a shortage of classrooms. Furthermore, due to the lack of necessary buildings, the headmaster has to work in a very small office which is used for other purposes as well, as well as make room for the clerk. Some bookshelves were seen nearby. The only computer of the whole school is also in there.

During the devastating blow-out and fire incidents of 7 January and 25 January 2006 at the Tengratila gas field, which stands only 30 yards off of the school, the science building got badly damaged. Since everything within the radius of one kilometer around the gas field was affected by this catastrophe, the school had to be kept shut for months subsequently. Later the science building was declared too risky to be usable by the school by the government. It was therefore declared abandoned by the Canadian Company Niko which was in charge of running the operation in the nearby gas field.

Promises had been made about rebuilding the facilities. However things have not really moved forward yet as the company has also not followed up on its commitment of rebuilding the science building and the laboratory building. The locals as well as the school authorities contacted the company several times, but got no response from the concerned people. Also, no help was offered by the government to end the accommodation problem, said assistant teacher of the school Azim Uddin.

Abdur Razzaque of the nearby village of Ajabpur told The Daily Star, that amidst all these problems, the school has done a laudable job in promoting education in these remote villages that do not even have a good communication link. The main road that connects the village with its neighboring villages from the upazila headquarters also goes under water during the monsoon. Other problems include the fact that the school needs more qualified teachers which it is currently having trouble affording.