Every day, Jitender Kumar, at the beginning of the 30th year, travels from Bahadurgar City to Otha Village in the Nuh district, Haryan, 131 kilometers away. Kumar is a Hindi teacher at a senior high school in Otha and a car and a car to get to the children they lead.
It is a hot, humid day in May, just before the school on a summer holiday. Kumar puts his head on a plastic chair under the fan located inside the 10×12 feet class. Electricity can go out at any time, and then the class sometimes moves to the shade of the tree.
The walls are blue, chipped; The gray cement floor is cracked and the students sit on a torn, dusty cotton mat, their bags next to them on the ground. The fan does not reach the corners of the room. When the bell rings for lunch, children squat in rows. Each of them is given by Thali: Watership gave and some rice. There is very little space where you can move, but children behave as they should at any other school: they playfully collapsed, some smiled, others bored.
Kumar tries to cool after spending the juggling day he barely knows. The postgraduate teacher (PGT), qualified for Hindi teaching at a senior school, has also been struggling with English texts with class 12 students. Since December 2022 there has been no English teacher. This year Kumar taught 13 children; Everyone failed in the school education council tests in Haryan (HSEB).
In 2025, NUH performed the worst in the results in Haryan districts. Class 10 recorded a percentage of passage 73.90 (up to 13,862 students appeared; 10 244), according to Haryan’s educational department. Class 12 recorded a percentage of passage 45.76 (only 7,588 students appeared; 3,472 students passed). The best results were from Rewari to 96.85% in class 10 and Jind to 91.05% for class 12.
Directors, teachers and administration agrees that the results were poor this time because the government has begun to oppose in the last few years. During the Council test 2025, 599 UMC (unfair cases) were registered in the administration compared to 918 in 2024, 1,813 in 2023 and 3,570 in 2022.
“The Council showed unprecedented strictness to reduce the threat of cheating during the tests. Disciplinary measures started against 135 people, of which 109 ingillars and 20 center superintendents, for drainage. Up to 16 companies (first information reports) were laid against 74 people across the state,” Hseb Munish Nagpal.
According to the district administration, NUH has 142 higher secondary schools. Only 20 recorded more than 80 passage, while 37 schools registered below 33%. There was no child in two schools.
Nuh is insufficiently development
NuH shares a border with a gurrogram, Monikered Millennium City, with a height company office and condoms complexes that come with pools and lawns. Nuh, with approximately 88% of its population staying in rural areas, is located in Aravali Hills. The road did not reach here, the water is rare and there is no university. The literacy rate in NUH is 56%, of which 73% are men and only 27% of women. According to the People census in 2011, the literacy rate in Haryana is 75.55%.
The district was once part of Mewat, but was carved 20 years ago. Rajasthan, Haryan and Uttar Pradesh intersect on Mewat, a belt of villages that are known to be hotspot for computer crime. There are more than 10.8 people in NUH, mostly Meos, who are Muslim farmers, according to the District Administration.
In 2018, the Government Think Tank, Niti Aayog, followed NUH as the most confident district in India. That year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the program of aspiration districts, which aims to transform 112 of the most developed districts of India.
The infrastructure of the region is thus poor teachers from other districts who do not want to live and work here. In 2017, it began to deal with Mewat teachers’ cadre. However, teachers from other parts of Haryan were still published in NUH. They go to court and quote the creatures of the Mewat cadre for this area to avoid coming here. The District School Officer NuH Ajit Sheoran says that with a new dose of cadre, which has been joining from the next academic year, most junior primary training (elementary schools) will be occupied.
No school for daughters
Inside the village of Sonkh in Nuh, his 60 -year -old Jarsheed lies on his Charpoy. His son sits beside him, while his daughters go around their day: one cleans cows, other chefs. Jarsheed works as a worker, but it is difficult to work, since there are many younger men to do the same job. His wife, Hasan Bashri, 60, says a couple have eight daughters and a son. Haryana has a gender ratio of 879, one of the lowest in the country, according to the last census in 2011.
Muskan (holding their school certificates) with mother and sister at home. | Photo Credit: RV Moorthy
Muskan, 19, is one of Bashri and Jarsheed’s daughters. He scored 450/500 two years ago, with 95% in Hindi in Class 12. “I wanted to study, but my father did not allow it. All my friends go to college; all my sisters studied until class 8,” Muskan says. “I wanted to become a teacher of Hindi, but my father never allowed it,” adds, her face red.
Jarsheed, in his dialect Mewati, says, “Why should daughters study? They will marry, leave and their husbands will not allow them to work. So what makes sense?” While Jarsheed speaks, his daughters are neither interrupted nor argue. Bashri, who has never seen a classroom in her life, says, “My husband’s thinking is problematic. If we educated Muskan, she would become a earnings member and would be able to help our family.” Muskan demonstrates his laminated stage and then returns it to his school bag, which still treasures.
Low school participation
A few kilometers from the village of Sonkh, the Sanskriti Senior School, the facade painted in the National Flag colors, is a government model. The school has sufficient infrastructure that will satisfy students across age groups: Laboratory of Informatics, Library and Sports Field. Nevertheless, it is low for the school of worries.
The students cut and cleaned the grass near the border wall of the NuH Government School. | Photo Credit: RV Moorthy
The Maneet Singh, who has been teaching here for six years, explains that the recurring problem in NUH is either truancy (missing school) or escape (did not participate after a long time). “Students register their names and then disappear, or some come to school and leave in the middle. This is a problem that teachers face across NUH,” Singh explains.
The headmaster of the school, Mukesh Kumar, spent 29 years in the Mewat region by teaching children. He says: “Most families send their children to school up to class 12, so they can get a driving license. Families are not with the idea of letting their daughters let home to study.” He says that children are trained to repair wheels or welding iron, so they are employable. “Not many come from families where education is discussed,” Kumar explains.
While the percentage of passing in their school among class 12 students was 59, for students 10 it was 47%. Kumar says: “The percentage of the passage has fallen because the hayana government intervened on a cheating threat.” The questionnaires are promoted in tests or walls of people to help with answers or appear for the test according to newspaper reports. This time the exams were canceled in 10 centers compared to 29 centers in the previous year. In 2023, the exams were canceled in 40 AO centers a year earlier in 64 centers.
27. February English paper 12 was leaked in Nuh and Palwal, minutes after the start of the test. Outsiders reportedly photographed windows and shared them online. At least four ingillars were rejected.
The next day was in Jhaijar and Nuh the mathematical paper of class 10 escapes. While FIRS was filed, 25 police workers were suspended, including four police representatives and three station officers and replaced Minister HSEB. Bhiwani, Jind, Jhajar, Sonipat and Nuh report cases of cheating more often than other districts, the police say.
Nagpal says at least 226 flying units and disciplinary measures were created against 599 employees. “The aim was to reduce cheating. At least 64 cases were registered in 2022. 40 FIRs were registered next year and 29 were registered in 2024. At least 10 were registered this year,” Nagpal said. It is often a crowd outside that helps cheating, he adds.
System challenge
Deputy Commissioner NuH Vishram Kumar Meena recognizes the multiple challenges that the district administration has. He says they will now work on ways to improve the system. “Cheating has become a” cultural phenomenon “or” trend “. Then they would accept admission to open educational centers (flexible participation), where they bribed government officials, adds Meena.
In 2023-2024 at least 4,446 students from classes 1-8 abandoned school, according to data from the Ministry of Education. Meena also shares a case where one of the open educational centers in NUH carried out an exam and found that at least 34 cheaters would appear on behalf of other people. “Now that we limit the cheating threat, it is important to instill the idea of the consequences in people’s minds, so they do not repeat this behavior.”
Meena speaks of education as part of a larger social structure. There are not so many job opportunities in NUH and larger family feel forced to choose boys who perform well at school to continue education. So the other children fall out. If they are boys, they start working; If they are girls, they are married. He emphasizes that rather than accusing people or administration, “there are systemic challenges that we need to deal with”.
School for her
Meena says the district has 22-25% lack of teachers at primary and secondary levels. Teachers in NUH also explain how Sarpanches, or in the village did not support the culture of education in their villages. Meena says: “We ended with 12 of the 325 Sarpanches and investigate 50 more for counterfeit and doubtful titles.”
In 2022, the Mewat Development Agency, which takes care of socio-economic growth, began working with non-profit organizations and began to receive Shiksha Sahayaks or Teaching Assistants. Newly graduated teachers are paid a monthly salary of £ 17,000.
In Louhar, Sakina, 40, Cement Floor squats to wash clothes. It uses stones to defeat the dirt under the hand pump. She’s sunny and she is sweating. Sakina rejects the question about what she dreams about her three daughters and her son, and returns to her clothes. Two minutes later, in the dialect of Mewati, characterized by the hard sounds of the surrounding landscape, he says: “Who is annoyed by what their children will do? Daughters are grazing cows and sons will become drivers. In a fleeting second, her daughters stop their work.
samridhi.tewari@thehind.co.in
Edit Sunalini Mathew
Published – May 30, 2025 12:57
