Marred by mistrust, maladies and meagre grants, welfare schools in Andhra Pradesh struggle to step up

B.R. Ambedkar Gurukulam faces student unrest, leading to management changes in Andhra Pradesh welfare residential school.

The transition from a smooth national highway to a bumpy service road at the Boyapalem crossroads was quite a jolt. A 3-km pothole-filled mud road led to an interesting juxtaposition of a modern, well-equipped, self-sufficient campus of B.R. Ambedkar Gurukulam, a residential school for boys run by the Department of Social Welfare at Edlapadu mandal of Palnadu district in Andhra Pradesh.

A government educational institution with such well-maintained facilities, especially the spacious, tidy campus and well-laid paths, reflects the thoughtful planning that has gone into creating a conducive environment for students.

The immediate question that comes to one’s mind is what prompted groups of students to jump over their compound wall to escape from this place on two different occasions in quick succession recently.

On November 1, seven students of the 10th Class jumped over the school compound wall to escape from the campus. A few staff members who saw them managed to bring back four students, while others fled the scene. They were later brought back to the campus.

What was disturbing for the school management was that a bigger group of 42 students, also from the 10th Class, committed a similar act on September 23, 2024. When asked, the students said they fled their campus due to alleged harassment, poor food quality, and academic stress.

A few were brought back, but most climbed up the hill behind their hostel building and descended only when the local police personnel intervened and convinced them to return, promising that their problems would be addressed immediately.

The group of adolescent students took a bold and somewhat reckless action to grab attention, to represent a state of mind that was simultaneously defiant, desperate and deeply misunderstood. In their minds, this act was a cry for recognition, a need to be heard by the management, which, they allege, had turned indifferent to their problems.