Puri: Blame it on lack of vision or may be the Odisha government is trying too much to promote its own ‘Ama Gaon Ama Bikash’ programme that officials did not show reluctance to shut down a school for a day for the ruling party’s programme in Delang of Puri district today.
The move sparked off resentment among students of Mahatab High School as well as their guardians as the pre-test examination for class X students ahead of their main matriculation examination was cancelled for the government programme.
“Today we had an examination which was cancelled for the government programme. I had prepared well for the exam and it is really frustrating as I have to again prepare myself for the crucial test,” said Amit Bhanja, a student.
“Everybody has one question whether such programme was intended for development or organised to play with the lives of students,” said Durga Routray, a guardian.
What is more surprising is the fact that BJD flags along with several posters were put up inside the school campus. Later, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik announced a slew of projects through video-conferencing.
Sources said the government officials in the region including the school authorities were aware of the schedule for the pre-test examination and still the block education officer wrote to the headmistress of the school, who later wrote to district education officer seeking permission to organize the government programme.
When asked what prompted the senior officials to cancel the examination, they could not give any satisfactory answer. However, they started advocating on implementation of government’s welfare schemes.
“The programme has been organised after taking permission from the school authorities as well as block officers,” said Delang BDO, Khirod Chandra Pradhan.
“As it was a developmental programme, we had rescheduled the examination as the conditions would not have been conducive to conduct the test,” said Nibedita Tripathy (in-charge headmistress) of Delang Mahatab High School.