Coimbatore: Despite struggling to meet their ends, residents of Orattukuppai village in Madukkarai block have pooled in money to provide tables, chairs, utensils and mats to a government school in their village.“It is out of our free-will we have donated Rs 7,500 worth of things like round tables, chairs, utensils and mats to the school, so that our children will have a comfortable learning environment and concentrate more on studies,” said E Parimala, a parent of two students from Orattukuppai government elementary school. She is also a member of the school monitoring committee, formally known as Parents Teachers Association (PTA).She said it is extremely difficult for them to find a job on all days of the week. “If we find work at construction site, we would get Rs 300 per day as wage. If not, we have to spend days at home or find a job either at farmland or in any of the local companies, where they give us Rs 200 per day,” she said.“The amount we spent for our children is beyond our means,” she added.She said that they had to find a way to construct a compound wall around the school as the students were not allowed to play when the traffic is high on the road adjoining the school.Headmaster of the school M Naramadha said the parents have also been convincing the villagers to admit their children to the school by assuring them of excellent education. The student strength has increased from meagre 17 in 2010 to 64 in 2018.Because of their campaign, five students who were studying in a private English medium school had joined the school, she said. “We are expecting that we will have an English medium from next year,” she added.“Eight children from Bihar are also studying in our school. Their parents had relocated from their state to here. We found the children not enrolled in any of the schools in our area and admitted them in our school,” she said.To encourage and teach the students, the teachers are, currently, learning Hindi with the help of books. At present, we are communicating with the students through a student who knows both Tamil and Hindi. “We are also learning Hindi to teach them the alphabets,” Narmadha said.Meanwhile, the school education department under Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has allotted Rs 1,500 each to honour the donors. It is one of the activities of the department to strengthen the bond between parents and school management as part of ‘Kalvi seer’, said an official from the departmentThis year, we have selected 240 government schools – 203 government elementary schools and 37 government high and higher secondary schools – which receive highest donation in the district, to honor the donors, said an official.

Stay updated with all the Coimbatore Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.