Amol Lalzare is an auto-rickshaw driver and a community journalist from Mumbai. He documents life and struggles of the marginalised communities in the maximum city. Amol Lalzare balances life as an auto-rickshaw driver and a community journalist who is documenting life and struggles of the marginalised communities in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. Previously a camera person in Bollywood,…

Amol Lalzare

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About The Video: In an age where public-private partnerships are touted as being to a newer brighter future, the state of a school building in Sathe Nagar, Mumbai being shared between a private school and a government school offers a cautionary tale of a nightmare kind. In the concerned building in Lallu Bhai Compound, The Govt. Municipal Secondary is run on the ground floor while the private school Shivam Vidya Mandir occupies the three other floors on the top.

The private school has refused to share the maintenance and electricity costs and new building is gradually going to waste. The students study in classrooms without fans or light. There is no drinking water available in the premises. The taps in the bathrooms run dry and the toilets are clogged and filthy. The students are forced to sweep the school themselves. The teachers who are tired of the degrading situation have stopped coming to school regularly. Neither the private school nor the govt. school is ready to comment, let alone address, this sorry state.

Children who attend the school are issued report cards with enough marks to pass them like empty clockwork, to the higher grade.

Our Community Correspondent Says: “You can’t blame children for losing their faith in education,” says Amol Lalzare, Community Correspondent from Mumbai whose young niece and nephew are also enrolled in the school in question. “Sometimes my sister goes to leave them to school and then comes right back with them. The teacher has not arrived.”

“I spoke to some of the teachers. They were unwilling to come on camera. They’re too afraid to speak out. They told me that they have tried to improve the situation but they just sounded tired and disillusioned. So, I tried to meet the principals of both school.”

“The private school principal refused to let me through the door while the government school principal had gone missing in action.”

“It is the only affordable school for the vulnerable communities of Sathe Nagar and the nearby areas. For another government you have to travel quite a distance. But what is the point of having such a school.”

“They’re producing class after class of illiterates but only with bonafied degrees.”