DW BUREAU / chandigarh Former Haryana Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda has said that there are neither teachers in schools nor doctors and other staff in hospitals and it seems that the BJP-JJP government wants to completely ruin the education and health system of the state. Reacting to the hunger strike of the students going on at the Model Sanskriti Senior Secondary School in Jakhal Mandi, Fatehabad, Hooda said the students have been sitting on hunger strike demanding of teachers. "Half of the 16 teachers posts out of 33 in the school are lying vacant, but the government is not paying any attention to this" he said. Hooda said that earlier, young children had to march on foot in the scorching heat in Karnal demanding teachers in school, and that too in the constituency of the Chief Minister. "This is happening for the first time in the history of the state that small children have to march on foot and go on hunger strike," he said. "This is happening because about 50,000 posts of teachers are lying vacant in the schools. In the last 8 years, the government did not recruit even a single JBT teacher and parents are withdrawing from government schools because they don't have enough teachers. Last year, 2,29,315 children had registered for class I, which has come down to 1,23,624 this time. Such a drop in the number of students is a clear proof of the failure of the government," he pointed out. "The education system shapes not only the present, but also future of the state. This is why we established 27 new universities, including 12 government universities in the state during the Congress government. Similarly, national level institutes like IITs and IIMs were brought in the state," he said. "We started Model School, Kisan Model School and Aarohi Model Schools in Haryana. Apart from this, construction of hundreds of new schools, ITI, Engineering College, BEd, JBT College, upgradation of old schools was also done during his government. By implementing policies like 'Chirag Yojana', the present government wants to demolish the entire education system and hand it over to private hands," he said. Hooda said that along with education, the policies of the government are also responsible for the poor condition of the health system. "Today 10,000 posts are lying vacant in the health department. There is a shortage of doctors and other staff in the general hospital of Karnal, the constituency of the Chief Minister himself. The post of Gynaecologist is lying vacant in the hospital since last 6 months. Not only this, patients are not even getting medicines in government hospitals. In such a situation, people are forced to go to private hospitals for treatment and medicines," he stated. (editor@dailyworld.in)