Upset Over School Picnic Cancellation, Girl Students Meet MLA In Odisha’s Mayurbhanj

Baripada: In an interesting development, upset over their school authorities’ decision to cancel a picnic, students of Bangiriposhi Girls’ High School in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district met local MLA Sanjali Murmu and sought her intervention into the matter.

As per instruction of the Head Mistress of the school, the students paid Rs 1,200 per head for a school picnic scheduled on December 23.

However, in between a teacher of the school posted a message in the social media stating that a lady teacher was collecting money for school picnic. Though neither the school name nor the lady teacher’s name was mentioned in the post, the Head Mistress was furious with such a criticism and cancelled the picnic.

Unhappy over the decision to cancel the school picnic, the aggrieved students after the school prayer one day did not turn up for classes. Instead, they all reportedly marched together to Bangiriposhi MLA Sanjali Murmu’s residence.

They met the MLA and apprised her about the entire development. They stated they have already paid Rs 1,200 per head for the picnic. Since many of them are from poor families, their parents were initially very hesitant to pay so much money for a school picnic. But after lot of pleadings they got the money. If the picnic is cancelled, their parents would not spare them, they feared.

After giving them a patient hearing, MLA Murmu promised to look into the matter and was finally successful in convincing them to go back to their classes, sources said.

But there were murmurs in the locality about who advised the girls to meet the MLA directly. Did anyone asked them to do so, or they did that suo motu? Such questions were doing rounds in Mayurbhanj district, reports said.

But this is not the first time that school students of Mayurbhanj have met the higher authorities en masse with their grievances.

In August 2018, more than a hundred students of Morada Patapur Government SSD Girls’ High School had left their hostel and covered around 30 kilometres by foot to Baripada to meet the District Collector over safety and security issues. Girls took up the laborious task following school authorities’ alleged apathy in addressing their grievances.

The girls were upset after a group of outsiders barged into their hostel on the day of Ganesh Puja and misbehaved with some inmates before fleeing the spot. Though the girls took up the issue with school authorities the same day, no step was taken, which reportedly compelled them to leave the hostel and meet the Collector to apprise him of the whole issue.

That incident six years ago also had hit the headlines.