Spurred by school’s effective working, Teetri and 13 other neighbouring villages appeal for its upgradation

Teetri, Rajasthan: Egged on by sound management and teaching standards at the government upper primary school, Teetri, thirteen other neighbouring villages have now raised a demand to upgrade the school further.

Residents of Teetri village in Rajsamand district have drafted an appeal to be made to the district education officer and collector to upgrade the school from the current upper primary to the senior secondary level.

They have argued that the school in Teetri is centrally located and well-connected to about thirteen other nearby villages such as Mataji Ka Badiya, Bangla Ka Badiya, Dedhiya, Kesarpura, Kankediya etc.

“After eight standard, children, at present, have to travel over 5 km to senior secondary schools in Sameliya and Ajitgadh where there are not even enough teachers. The transport frequency is poor and it becomes very difficult for girls from all these villages to study further,” said Tej Singh, resident of Teetri.

Singh has started a signature campaign and is confident that the appeal initiated by Teetri residents would get support from all the other thirteen villages.

The school’s headmaster, Mohammad Gafur Chipa, said that the school’s 233 students presently come from ten different villages.

Located about 14 km from the block headquarter, Bhim, the school’s premises reflect the systematic and painstaking organisation by Chipa and nine other teachers.

Signposts installed to indicate directions to various school facilities, pots kept outside every classroom for drinking water, separate tank with taps set up to wash mid day meal utensils, printed workbooks handed out to students are among some of the highlights in the school’s functioning that stand out.

The school has also kept a first aid kit and installed a mirror on a wall to which are hung a nail cutter, a comb, oil and scissors for children to use when they feel necessary.

These small changes and interventions make a big difference in creating a healthy, learning environment in the school, said Chipa who is the prime force behind the school’s design and maintenance.

“When I was posted here in 2003, the school had just four classrooms. Now, the campus is complete with eight classrooms (one for each standard), store rooms, kitchen, borewell, some play equipment and separate toilets for boys and girls” said Chipa.

School courtyard

The school has a cement badminton court in the courtyard, a rainwater harvesting facility with a five-lakh-litre-capacity storage tank, a developed and a 3.17 bigha-sized playground a few metres away to play cricket, football, kho kho and kabaddi.

“Our next goal for the school is to have digital classrooms and projector facility. Let’s see how it works out,” added Chipa.

Chipa also keeps a note of phone numbers of both parents of all the students enrolled in the school. “If a student remains absent for two consecutive days, we make sure that a call of enquiry goes from to the parents”.

The village makes collectively makes a contribution of about Rs 1 lakh every year from the income generated by farming on common land owned by a ‘Users’ committee’ constituting villagers as members.

“What we like most about the school is that teachers give personal attention to students. We want the school to grow further. A lot of us older people here are illiterate but we want our children to study well,” added Singh, who is also a member of the Users’ committee.

Drum and drinking water pots kept outside every classroom

Mirror and other subsidiaries kept for use

In tough times for public education in rural Rajasthan, government school at Chitardai shows the way forward

Chitardai, Rajasthan: From numbers interspersed in scenic paintings, students try to identify hidden digits, with much intrigue. This is a first standard Maths period.

Students complete reading an English story, not from a textbook, but from placards handed out to each of them that have sentences and characters written on them. They read the placards one by one, with playfulness. This is a primary-level English period.

Names of districts and states are filled by chalk on empty maps of Rajasthan and India painted on walls. That’s an upper primary-level geography period.

These classes of playful learning are an everyday story at the government upper primary school, Chitardai village, Deogarh tehsil in Rajasthan.

At a time when the Rajasthan government mulls handing over the management of government schools to private bodies, the school sets a formidable example of how quality education prevails in government-run schools.

These methods of innovative teaching were adopted by the school’s former headmaster, Devender Singh Kachawa, post 2005, to make the best of limited resources and staff strength.

After primary students in the school are taught all the numbers from 1 to 100, their exam is conducted on an open concrete field where numbers are placed and painted randomly.

Students gather around the circle, the teacher says a number out loud and the student who gets to the number first passes the exam.

A bigger circle in the same space has numbers and alphabets painted at an every two-foot distance around which students are asked to run. The teacher asks them to stop after a few seconds and to say the number on which they stand aloud.

“In 2005-06, we had an acute shortage of teachers. There were only two teachers at the time. The circle of numbers and alphabets, that we now call Chitardai circle, evolved to teach multiple standard students at a time,” said Kachawa, who was promoted out of the school this year to a lecturer’s post in Rajsamand block.

Kachawa has a laid a strong focus on the notion of ‘learn by playing’ which is now followed by all the teachers at the school who are urged to bring new teaching ideas at regular intervals.

First standard students at the school do not learn by writing in their books. They learn the names of animals by drawing and painting them.

Stencils and other paraphernalia used to teach students

The English and Hindi alphabet orders are painted on the school wall with blank spaces in place of some alphabets which the students are asked to fill.

“In this process, students don’t realise they are learning. We believe that a person’s inherent nature is to play. Therefore, we decided to link studying with playing, drawing and craft,” added Kachawa, who is also a national-level basketball player.

In 2010, the school collaborated with United Kingdom-based organisation, People and Places, who sent volunteers to the school for a month every year to teach English to students.

“They contacted us after seeing the Chitardai circle video on youtube. Their involvement helped both teachers and students here a great deal,” said the 46-year-old former headmaster.

Kachawa used to shake hands with every student at the gate as they entered school, with a ‘How are you?’ and ‘What’s your name?’ every morning.

“These small gestures are important for children to feel welcome and encouraged,” he said.
The school has also stepped up to raise awareness on child marriages by putting up a big banner on occasions that states child marriage is a crime.

However, the school is now languishing with just four teachers over a student strength of 231 and against the sanctioned teacher strength of nine. Vacant posts include that of the headmaster, English teacher and three primary-level teachers.

Boraz Ka Kheda village sets example; pools in to develop government school

Rajsamand, Rajasthan: To a question on what sets the government upper primary school at Boraz Ka Kheda apart, its alumnus and sarpanch of Boraz panchayat, Meena Salvi, says, promptly: “It’s the facilities”.

Belying its interior location and absence of a pucca road access, the school has piped drinking water supply, a drinking water storage tank with taps and most importantly, functional toilets.

Creative paintings of Hindi and English alphabets and informative posters on health, scientific concepts and maps dot the school’s four classrooms.

Pramod Singh Charan, the school’s headmaster attributed the school’s development to the interest and involvement of the villagers.

Beginning from the construction of the school structure to the study desks or benches in classrooms to the uniforms and notebooks of students, everything in the school has come from community contribution.

On Thursday, the school held a programme to distribute books and uniforms to the newly admitted students which was also attended by the district education officer.

Parents at the programme

Located about 12 km from the district headquarter, Rajsamand, the Boraz Ka Kheda government upper primary school has 161 students – 72 (45 %) of them, girls.

“Owing to our vicinity to Rajsamand, there are many children who go to private schools from the village. We have held night meetings and challenged parents to send them to our school. We have guaranteed them with good results,” said Charan, who has been working in the school since 1992.

Taking a cue from private schools, the government upper primary school also adopted advertising techniques such as distributing pamphlets about the school’s features in the village.

“What helps us connect with people is that we have helped them with their social problems too apart from school-related ones. When they were facing hassles in opening bank accounts to get scholarships for their children under the chatravriti yojana, we facilitated this process and got account opening forms filled from our school,” said Harish Paliwal, Maths teacher at the school.

Thursday’s programme was well-attended by around 40 parents apart from state education department officials and donors, most of whom own or run marble mining and cutting factories along the highway that connects Boraz Ka Kheda to Rajsamand.

The school which was upgraded from primary to the upper primary level in 2006 was shifted to a new, nearby location with a bigger area.

After the school management approached parents and other villagers for funds to construct a school structure, four classrooms, a mid day meal kitchen and an office room were constructed.

“Some contributed with cement, some with paint while some with furniture and other subsidiaries,” said Mangilal Paliwal, a former sarpanch, under whose tenure the construction took place.

According to rough estimates, the school has got funds amounting to around 3.5 lakh from private donors.

“As per government’s rules, we got only 1.6 lakh to construct a new building which was insufficient. But by encouraging people to pitch in money for their school, we built bigger classrooms and a wider school corridor,” added Charan.

The keenness in construction design is seen in the rainwater harvesting facility constructed in the premises to deal with water shortage in the area.

“We had to raise the height of the building’s foundation to prevent waterlogging. In the raised height, we constructed a tank that would store the rainwater collected,” added Harish.

Non-potable water from the tank, that has a capacity of about 30,000 litres, is now used in toilets and for watering plants in the premises.

Girls queuing to use the school toilet

The school undertakes tree plantation activity every year where around 40 seeds are sown by students and teachers.

While the school stands out with complete infrastructure and full teaching staff, unlike most government-run schools in rural Rajasthan, there are still many unaddressed social issues.

“Out of the 300 families living in our village, 150 are from the Bhil tribal community and many of them have not enrolled their children in school,” said Sohan Gurjar, president, school management committee.

Provision of infrastructure has also not uplifted the state of girls’ education.

“While there are good government as well as private schools here, most girls are still not sent to study after tenth standard. This has to change,” said Salvi, who herself discontinued studying after ninth standard.