The students visiting the Maoist-infested central and south Bihar districts under the banner of the IITians for Youth (IFY) observed that there was a woeful lack of infrastructure and good teachers in the schools to teach young boys and girls, particularly Class IX and X students.
There was no dissemination of quality education in rural schools to enable the students to excel in studies, an IIT-Kharagpur student Nishat Ahmed said after visiting rural areas of Gaya district where he interacted with the local students and gave them counselling about education and career.
Though the state government has upgraded several secondary schools into high schools, there was an acute shortage of teachers and more so good teachers, he said.
IIT students interacted with the parents and found that they wanted to provide good education to their children and in the absence of good education in the schools they were forced to send their wards to coaching institutes, Ahmed said.
It was because of academic activities in schools that the coaching institutes were a booming business in the rural areas, he said.
The IFY delegation is touring the central and south Bihar districts since May five last under a programme sponsored by the Bihar police to interact with the students of rural areas and provide them tips and career-related counselling.
