Class II girl travels 60km daily with mother to school in Mulki, Karnataka to help avoid its shutdown
With one teacher teaching four students in the Kilpady Lower Primary School, Mulki, Mangaluru Taluk, the school faced an inevitable shutdown. But one of the four students, Nishmitha, who studies in Class II, has helped put off that day. With help from her parents Vasudev Moolya and Laxmi, who are daily-wage labourers, the school will not shut down and will continue to teach the students.
Nishmitha, along with her mother, walks for almost an hour to the bus stand from where they change two more buses to reach Kilpady. The journey doesn't end there. Nishmitha walks for 12 more minutes to reach the school. Not just that, her parents spend about Rs 70 every day on the bus rides, to cover 60 kilometres. But despite it all, the little girl continues to take all the efforts along with her mother to come to the school to study.
There are two more students who are studying in Class V. The school teacher fears that the school will only have two students left once the fifth graders leave next year. Speaking with Times of India, the teacher said,
"In October, Class II student Nishmitha's parents, who lived close to the school, built a house in Kudri Padavu, Karkala. When we told them that with Nishmitha leaving, the total number of students would go down and could lead to the school's closure, they decided to travel to this school every day."
A significant thing to be noted is that the teacher, who lives 35 kilometres away from the school, changes six buses every day to be able to come to the school. The Kannada-medium school was often on the verge of shutting down, thanks to evolution of English-medium schools all around. With Nishmitha and her mother making strong and conscious efforts, revival of the school is going strong right now.
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