Shahad Ali was four years old when his mother Jannat first tried to enrol him in Government Sarvodaya Senior Secondary School in Delhi’s Badarpur Khadar village. She was turned down, with the school saying no seats were available.

Two years later, she tried again but was told “all seats are full”.

Jannat was desperate. “He was already six years old,” she said. “I finally had to send him to my in-laws in Sabapur so he could enrol in the school there.”

It’s a familiar story across the village, where nearly 200 children are out of school. But now, with a Delhi official taking notice, will things change?

Newslaundry visited the village to investigate.

A school but no schooling

Badarpur Khadar is located on the bank of the Yamuna in northeast Delhi, near the state’s border with Uttar Pradesh. It’s home to around 160 families and is served by a single government school.

Jameel Ahmed, the village pradhan, told Newslaundry: “Most villagers here are illiterate and earn their livelihoods as daily wage labourers in neighbouring farmlands.”

The school was set up in 2014, when the Delhi High Court ordered the setting up of a school after a PIL was filed. But eight years on, it still doesn’t have the capacity to take in all the children in the village.

“We already have 1,200 students,” said Manoj Kumar, the vice-principal. “There are 24 classrooms and the standard capacity of a classroom is 40 students.”

But the villagers alleged there was another reason for their children not being enrolled: the school purportedly demands “documents” to admit a child. Sahana, whose daughter Isha is seven, said she tried “many times” to enrol her child.

“But whenever I approach them, they ask for Aadhaar card which we don’t have,” she said. The village does not have a centre to procure an Aadhaar card, and the nearest village is five km away.

Meanwhile, children in Badarpur Khadar have nowhere to go. The village is accessible only by road from Uttar Pradesh. Newslaundry met at least seven children, aged between six and nine, who said they have never been to school.

Last month, the authorities finally took notice.

On September 14, Razia Begum, the district’s deputy director of education, was out for a routine inspection of schools when she dropped by Badarpur Khadar for an unscheduled visit.

“I noticed many children of schoolgoing age playing and wandering on the streets during school time,” she told Newslaundry. “It sparked my curiosity and I decided to visit the village.”

Razia met several villagers that day. While initially reluctant to speak, a group of 30 women finally approached her and said their children weren’t being admitted to the school.

“I was shocked,” she said.

She promptly constituted a team comprising officials from the district education directorate, district urban resource coordinators, and cluster resource centre coordinators, along with school staff and members of the gram panchayat to conduct an enrolment drive in the village.

The drive took place between September 15 and 17, with announcements made from the local masjid to promote it. Officials also conducted a door-to-door survey and identified 211 “out of school” children in Badarpur Khadar. At least 182 were of the primary school level and the rest older. Razia’s team then told the school to admit these children.

However, as the vice-principal pointed out, the school doesn’t have the capacity for more students. He also told Newslaundry the school has a “deficiency of around 30-40 percent of teachers” due to its remote location. “At least 20 teachers take transfers from our school in a year,” he said. “This is a major problem the school is currently facing.”

The school has 40 teachers, including 12 guest teachers. It needs at least 50, Kumar said, as per the total sanctioned posts for the school.

Some of the villagers claimed the school was at full capacity because it had enrolled children from outside. Why wasn’t preference given to children of Badarpur Khadar?

Kumar blamed it on the school’s location on the border. “Relatives of the villagers reside in villages under the jurisdiction of UP. I don’t know how, but many of them have Aadhaar cards from Delhi,” he claimed. “So, if such a student comes to us and seeks admission, we cannot deny them.”

However, after Razia’s visit, Kumar told Newslaundry that registration of all 211 students had been completed. Out of them, 26 have been admitted in classes 6 through 8, and 15 out of 182 to primary school.

“Paperwork for the rest of the children is in process and they too will get admission soon,” he said, adding that the school will adjust the children somehow.

Kumar had initially indicated that the school can admit more students once authorities sanction more sections to classes. While Razia told Newslaundry sanctioning more classrooms is “not a solution”, she suggested that the school run in two shifts if needed to accommodate more students. Meanwhile, she said she’s flagged the villagers’ issues with the district magistrate.

“DM has agreed to solve the problems faced by the villagers like Aadhaar card and bank account for their children,” she said. “I have also written to the women and child development department to establish an anganwadi centre in the village. They have agreed to do the same soon.”