Guru Griho

From Sunamganj

Derai Girls High School

Iqbal Siddiquee

Derai Girls High school, located at the upazila headquarters of Derai in Sunamganj district turned 52 this year. The institution, being the only high school for the girls in a comparatively backward haor (low lying zone) region of Suunamganj district, has been playing a very important role in providing education to the girls of the region for decades.

A well to do resident of the region, Kamalakanta Roy, donated valuable land for the school in 1957. However, the school was first started in the house of Srikanta Roy and was later shifted to the donated land.

Currently, the school has a total of 1200 students and just 12 teachers, despite there being provisions for at least 22 teachers to run the school. Petition for appointing more teachers has long been lying pending with the authorities concerned. The school authority has thus far failed to get their much desired approval for unknown reasons.

Eminent politician and former prime minister's parliamentary affairs advisor Suranjit Sengupta (presently parliamentary standing committee chief of law ministry) served the school as its founder head teacher. Current head teacher of the school- Nanigopal Roy told the Daily Star that the students suffer much due to the lack of a hall room or auditorium, and the need for a hostel for the girls is constantly being ignored. Construction of a hostel building would accommodate students from the remote villages in the outlying areas, where the rural girls does not have the opportunity of good education. Every year, hundreds of girls in the remote haor villages have give up on their studies mainly due to a lack of schooling facilities.

The school also lacks adequate numbers of benches and tables. The students continue to suffer because of the failure of the authorities to take any measure for the construction of new building to accommodate the students. The river Kalni, which flows by the school, has already caused the school great loss of properties. In this regard as well, the authorities are non-responsive, and take no measure to check the erosion of school-property over the last few years.