Saral Services blog

Day 4
Date: October 21, 2011
Nai pokhar to GIRIAC

Started the day to focus on meeting parents and teachers from private schools.

I talked to two families in Bisthapit village. I stoped my cycle on the road side to speak to an old man who was repairing his tiled roof. Two of his grand sons were getting ready to go to school. I asked if they have sent all their children to school. One of his son (age 15) was not going to school. He was sleeping covering his face. Her sister told that he wants to go to Madras with his friends to earn and drop the study. I asked her why? He is not doing well in the class. Teachers often insalts him by saying he can not learn. He does not know even simple addition and substraction. Though he is in class VII, he does not know maths and science. He is studying in Middle school Rajgir. On the other hand some of his friends have already gone to Madras and who are earning.

Sunaina, a lady from next door came and started narreting plight of her children. She has three sons – Elder son Morari (Age 15) left for Madra in January 2011. He is now earning. He dropped his study against parents wishes. He was studying in middle school, Rajgir. He did not learn much. His second son Gobinda (age 10) studied first in Government Primary School (GPS) located inside the Barud Factory, then studied in Sangat GPS, Rajgir for 3 years. He then studied in Middle school for 1.5 years. But he could not do well. Now from January, after she lost her elder son she put both her sons in Private school – Ideal Convent. But they have admitted them in LKG. All the efforts of sending children to GPS did not do any advantage. Only the school kept them away from home controled in school building. Her third son Mithun (age 10) in the same private school and for both she is paying Rs. 300 per month.

When a child above 12 years does not do well in the school, the child is not happy with himself. He explores alternative where he could say that he is doing well. He/She also needs to have success on his/her side. Girls get married and Son need to earn. I was convinced with the aurgument of the boy.

On the road I met two boys (one in class VII and one in class VI) who was going to GPS in Ajaynagar. I stopped my cycle and asked them a fewsimple questions. a) Ram has 32 mangoes and 7 of them went wrong, he has to distribute them among 5 students. How much one student will get? And b) Ask them to read a few sentences from their own Hindi book. Both the boys could not do them correctly. If they can not answer such simple questions, why should children waste time in GPS? I moved on thinking about the question.

Then I met 5 girls going together to GPS. I stopped and asked them same math question. All of them took out their notebook and pen and tried to solve. After 2 minutes one girl answered correctly.

I saw a private school and went to see it. I saw 4 children aged 10-12, they were playing rural cricket. I asked them why they did not go to school. Three of them told that they do not go to school. One said that he goes to GPS but he left the school.

We then reached Lohianagar GPS. Costruction was nice and big. It is located near Bisthapit village. It has interesting model. There are 10 Tola Sevak. I met Ashok Kumar, one such Tola Sevak. He job is to teach 25 children in the morning in hamlet and then get them ready for school and bring them to school. He then drops these children back home after 3 PM from the school.
His job is to ensure all 25 children come to school regularly. He has managed to get 22-23 children to school.

There is hostel facility for 50 children in the school. Children from Mahadalit are brought to school and they stay in the school. School looks after food, cloths and education. I went to such one class where children of all classes were present. 3 children answered wrong to my simple maths while one child answered correctly.

Head master of the school is dynamic. He has done his MBA. He certainly wants to improve the school. He is ready to hold compuer classes. He has similar problem of GPS ie. Less number of teachers and he has non-teaching work load.

We visited two private schools in Giriac. Both the schools were old. They are happy what they are doing. Ecomonic of school is in crisis. School rent is Rs. 1000 and above. In a class there are 20-30 students. Fees is Rs. 100-150. If there are 30 students in a class and collects Rs. 100 then he will get Rs. 3000 a month. There is a need of one teacher who has to be paid minimum Rs. 2000. Where is the saving??? On the top of Shrawan Kumar is providing free for Nursary class with the hope that they pay from the LKG and class I. Saving is only if you managed to get a teacher who is willing to work at lower than Rs. 2000 per month.

HM of Imtiaz Academy suggested that Government should pay to private school if private school has to accomodate 25% children from weaker section of the society free. His logic is sound. Why should Private school accommodate students free and how?

Day 3
Date: October 19, 2011
Rajgir to Nai pokhar

Every month there is a Sankul meeting of Government schools at CRC (Cluster Resource Center). There are two centers namely Panditpur and Nai pokhar. I decided to attend Panditpur CRC. There are 9 schools associated with Panditpur CRC. It gave me an interesting opportunity to meet teachers from 9 schools there. Mr. Mahendra Kumar Singh is the CRC coordinator from Hassanpur school. Meeting him was like meeting complete gentle and polite person. He was softspoken and sincere. Our boys had already surveyed his school. He is keen that we start computer classes.

Subsequently I went to Nai pokhar where there was another CRC and teachers from another 10 schools. We met all of them. It was really interesting to know them.

I saw clear encrochment on school land by public. Teacher was scared to talk about it. Teacher used locks to keep even toilet safe in this school. Security is the main problem. I saw door of the school not there in some rooms. I was told they have been taken away. Government school fails to provide security to infrastrucuture and land.

School is able to teach good manners and prevent them from bad habbits. Certainly not in some of the Government elementray schools near Rajgir. Another teacher said that “you leave a pen on the table, next day the pen is not there” Children steal them. Some of them mix with other big boys and steal rice from the rice bag in near by BRC Godawn. They simply use blade to cut the bag and take away rice and sell them. Children do toilet on the road that comes to the school. It become difficult to even walk.

I had the assumption that Government schools have better infrastructure. My assumption proved wrong after seeing the building of these schools. One of school near Barud factory does not have its own land. School runs on rented two rooms. One teacher told that her school runs in community building. However, most of them did have land and buidling. But the number of rooms and tables availabe for classes were insufficient in most of the schools except in two. There is one well for drinking water but the well was realy dirty. Hence they get water from outside handpump.

Teachers had same issues – a) Insufficient teachers and b) Teachers have additional load of work including preparing at least 30 different reports every month. Preparation of these reports takes away 100 effective hours of the teachers. Hajipur Primary School has only two teachers that cover five classes of 200 children. One of them is not availble for teaching as he is busy in other works. Therefore one teacher has to cover all the classes and all the subjects of 200 students.

I initiated a discussion with teachers as to how load for preparing reports can be reduced. Suggestion was that BRC has computer and they should keep all the data and take the reports from there. My question why this is not done now. Perhaps BRC lacks the imagination. Or System prevents them to do. Perhaps we could have eCRC model similar to eSafalGRAM model.

Suppose one ITFT is stationed with one laptop and a printer at CRC level. He has entered all data from the member schools and then able to produce reports as desired. He will save 100 effective hours of teachers from each schools. Total he will save 1000 hours of teachers time and which then will be available for children. If the cost of one hour is Rs. 100 then it generates the value of Rs. 1 lakh per month. Teacher could not relate with the value but they said it will work if the system is at CRC level.

Government schools addresses the education of poorest and downtrodent. Yes, Thakur Asthan primary school has admission of 228 Mahadalit children. Most of them come from fishing community. They are very poor. Only 60% of the children attend the class. 40% often have problem at home. Some of them have support their parents. Some want to doing fishing in the pond. Hence the attendance is low. Often the attedance is low as students study in private schools. But this is not the case in this school.

Day 2

Date: October 18, 2011

Shishu Niketan Nalanda to Rajgir

We found a solution for the logistic issue. We had decided to return to our Rajgir office in the evening leaving behind the cycle. On the next we will come to same place and start the journey of baseline from the same point. Yesterday, we left our cycle with Mr. Uday Kumar and had returned to Rajgir. It was required as we had to write report for sharing with friends and colleagues.

Started the day from Nalanda middle school, a government school located next to Nalanda Heritage site. Though the school started in 1946, some part is still having tile roof. Tables are not sufficient, more than half the students sit on the ground. I found that perception that government school has good infrastructure, is not true. School has 885 adimission and 450 are present. Even to house these 450, you need minimum 11 rooms and school has only 9 rooms. 20 teachers are required but there are only 13 teachers. There is no teacher for Sanskrit. Irony was that there was a Urdu teacher but there is no student for Urdu.

It was early morning, students were cleaning the floor and getting ready for prayer. Some of them were in uniform and some were not. Came to know that only girls are given uniform. We asked for water, two girls came to give me water to drink.

School was have two interesting schemes: a) Utprerak School for children of Mahadalit. There were about 50 children of age 8-12. They were having hostel facility. Only two toilets. One hall was for education and one hall for sleeping. It was interesting to see that Government has also ventured to take challenge of bring children of Mahadalit to schools. Often such work is done by Non-government agency.

b) We saw an Anganwadi where about 30 children (under 5 years old). One ANM was looking after them. She was looking after all its activities such as food, cleaning and teaching. One of the child showed her talent by reciting a ryme.

Mr. Sanjay Kumar who is the Assistant Teacher. Mr. Kumar was very articulative and he was positive that even government schools can do better and can at par with private schools if teachers are left do only teaching job. There should be grading for teachers and students both. There is no incentive for good teachers. Neither there is an incentive/facilities for good students.

Next stop was Utkarmi Middle school about 1 Km away. We met Ms Manju who was in late 50. She was there since 1986. School was set up in 1936. Thereafter we went to one Urdu Middle School and then proceeded towards Silaw middle school. Thereafter we proceeded to Rajgir and ended the day.

We visited four Government schools. Only about 50% of the children enrolled are actually present. Main reason for this is that children are enrolled mainly because most of the private schools where these students actually attend are not recognized.

Another interesting feature we noticed that percentage of girl children in government school are more. This is not because, these schools gender friendly. This is because parents do not want to spend money on the education of girls.

Teachers in Urdu school feel that we do not keep the photo of Muslim leaders such as Jakir Hussain, Dr Kalam. How we will teach communal harmoney to the children. It is true. However, in Silaw Middle schools there were 10 photos of leaders of which Dr. Kalam was also there.

Bihar Govertment school unaware of talent of the child

While moving from Nalanda to Silaw, I saw two children are cutting grasses on the road side. I stoped and asked them why did not they go to school. One said that his father is unwell and hence has to do these work for cattle they have. I asked him five problems of maths to one boy. He answered all of them fast and correctly. Second boy did not answer them. He is enrolled in Nalanda Middle school. Present system is not fully prepared to address this issue. We may loose a talent due to the ignorance of the parents and teacher.