This Malkangiri Government School has a Train Look
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This nine-decade-old government school from the tribal-dominated Malkangiri district has got its classroom walls painted like a train and is grabbing a lot of eyeballs.
This government nodal upper primary school in the district headquarters town of Malkagniri of Odisha was like other government schools. The school was included under the “building as learning aid” (Bala) scheme of the state government and painted the walls like a train.
Under the scheme, school walls have been brightened up with various learning objects, but what attracts most is the painting of train on the walls of the school. “When it was decided to convert the school walls as a learning aid for students, we were not happy with just normal painting but wanted something informative, beautiful and attractive,” said Prakash Chandra Nayak, headmaster of the school.
According to a news published in The Telegraph, Sukant Sahu, a teacher of the school, said, as over 90 percent of students were yet to see a train, it was decided to paint the classrooms as train bogies and was named “Malyabanta Express”. Painted in blue, windows and door handles have been drawn to give it the look of a bogie.
Ram Chandra Khemendu, of Janbai under Chitrakonda block, who studies in Class VII said, “I have never seen the train. However, after seeing the painting of a train on our classroom wall, I could get an idea of how a train looks like. It’s very beautiful,”.
The school was established in the year 1928 and has classes from I to VIII has 620 students and 13 teachers. The painting provides a preliminary idea of a train to the students, but also it is attracting the attention of outsiders who flock to the school to take pictures in front of the “bogie”.
The reports also mention that, the walls are not only painted with the train motif but also have paintings on national integration, Swachh Bharat Abhijan, and various festivals.
Loknath Paricha, a Malkangiri resident said that the school is an eye-opening experience and he has not seen such a beautiful and child-centric school in the government set-up.
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