Our colleagues of Saral Services were very cooperative. We met at Pureland Hostel where we had kept our cycle. We proceeded towards Maghra from there.

Maghra School was set up by Late Madan lal Jain. In 1950, he came to visit Rajgir, Nalanda and Pawapur and was to catch train from Baktiyarpur but missed the train. He stayed for one night in Biharsharif. He liked the place and settled down. He setup the school in 1978. There used to be the only school in Biharsharif then. It was doing well. There were more than 350 students. There are 12 rooms. School building is good even now. There is a place for children to play in the school.

Mr. Ashok Jain who is a businessman in the town. He has a cloth shop. He is not interested in earning money from the school. The school is for children from poor family. Monthly fee is Rs. 30-40 per child. Now there are only 120 children. Total collection is only Rs. 4000. There are five teachers. Monthly payment to teachers are Rs. 1200-2500. Total payment is Rs. 10000. There is monthly loss of Rs. 6000.

There is general downfall in the moral of the teacher and that reflects on the teaching. Number of children has gone down as a result.

It was sad to see down fall of the private school set up with only motive of doing social service. Motive to doing social service is not enough. One has to think in the line of sustainability which means that one has to think of getting returns in tangible terms directly or indirectly.

Great learning from this school is that we have to think in terms of sustainability at least with respect to the variable and recurring cost. It must cover the cost.

With this school we completed survey of 100 schools.  We also completed cycle yatra for 100 km covered in 10 days.  Yatra started on 17 october 2011 from Nalanda Khandar and closed it in Biharsharif.

I met a monk Mr. Mahant Sheelbhadre. He started Ashoka Buddist Trust. The Trust has five members of which three are from foreign country. He started the school Pureland. In Buddism, Nalanda is treated as Pureland.
He explained Udantpuri university that was located in Biharsharif. He has plan to start school in near Deepnagar for which he needs about 57 lakh. He receives donation but the trust does not have FCRA.

His school is more clean and organized. He has three computers but that is locked. He is not using them now because he feels that we need bigger space and once we get that more computer will be procured and computer class will be started. He also have Shravans who are small little monk who are in the making of monk.
SheelBhadre has a dream to give some thing to Nalanda that history will remember. He wants to make the land where best teaching of Budda is done.
I and Sanjeev went to see three schools, namely National Public School, Indian Public School and Gurukul Public School. All of them are private school and they are unregistered. NPS is new an small having 80 children. Some of them stay as family member. They take some students and ask them to teach in the class.
Nageshwar Pd, Principal of NPS was earlier taking tution in Jharkhand. There is several attempt to make the delivery mechanism such that cost of delivery is lower. He is using students as teacher. He takes them as part time. He alone takes all the classes. Single teacher taking all the classes.
Principal of IPS was preparing for an examination. If selected there, he will drop the school. It is his stop gap arrangement. Rajendra Prasad, Principal of Gurukul first joined as Marine Engineer but he had medical problem so he returned and joined his father to manage the school. School is doing well. He has computer lab with 10 computers. His School has 700 students. About 100 are in his Hotel. He plans to start big school in Jana. It will require more than crore but he confident that he will get money from Bank.

It is profitable to start schools at Panchayat level. Earlier days one did not think of starting school in those places as a) communication was not there to reach there by the parents to drop their son. b) There was purception that in urban places people can pay more. But this has been proved wrong. Even people in village pay more if they see the value in the school. Poor pay when understand the value for the educating child and even Rich do not heed education for child. It was nice to meet children of IPS.

In Vidya Bhawan where I interacted with children. They do not complain. They also have huge patience. We reached Vidya Bhawan at 5 PM. It was becoming dark. There was no electricity. Children were inside. There was no light. School though has Inverter to use. But the Inverter was to put on light. Hence the boys was sitting in the dark. None of them complain. There was large number of musquito. Yet no child complained. My explaination of this phenomena is that these boys came from Village and for them no electricity is normal.

It was indeed another wonderful day. Today was Bakrid and hence all government schools

Enjoying tea sitting infront of a private school with Brother

were closed. However, some of the private schools were open. Sanjeev and I went to Ranabigha on motorcycle. We went to SVV school where we had left our cycles. Brother of Mr. Mehta was there and he commented, “Yes, save the petrol by going by cycle”. We kept the motorcycle and took our cycle to move.  Petrol price has be raised and there has been country wide protest.  his comment was apt.  Meanwhile Brother got tea for us. It was really sweet of him. We sat on paddy field and enjoyed drinking interesting tea. It was nice tea indeed.

One lady came from the field and requested for the bench from the school. She took the bench for thrashing paddy. It was really funny to see bench of the school being used for thrashing the paddy. School is so much integral part of the village.

We visited four private schools namely – a) Bharati Model Public school, Gyan Jyoti, Pragatisheel and Pureland in just two KM. Model public school and Gyan Jyoti are located in two building adjacent to each other. We had to cross narrow lane from the main road. Pragatisheel was located on main road.

One father and 80 + children, Arun Kumar takes care of children

Mr. Arun Kumar is the founder and Principal of Pragatisheel. He said that he is the oldest. He helped others to start and grow. Model has 200, Gyan has 250, Pragatisheel has 150 and Pureland has 150 students. They are charging Rs. 150 to 250 per month and Rs. 1000-1500 for Hotel fees. All four had Hostel facilities. All of them have one computers. All were interested in starting computer aided learning. All these four schools were started by four persons and they were teachers of maths and science.

I reached Pureland school at 4 PM. School had closed. But children in the hostel were siting in organized manner to do the homework. Sangam Bharati was happy to show us the discipline that they follow. Students were sharp too. I asked question from a student. He gave me correct answer. One of the student showed model of science that he had made. I was really happy to visit the school and understand the alertness of the teacher and preparedness of the student. Pureland is school through a Ashoka Buddist Trust.

Mr. Surendra Pd argued against government action against Private school

Mr. Surendra Pd of Model school was concerned about what is happening for private schools. Today government has given ultimatum for getting them registered. If school do not go for the registration, all of them will be considered invalid and may have to pay penalty. Unde r the RTE, Government of Bihar has asked all the private schools to get them registered under SSA registration. All of them will have to do so by November 12. Government wants us to be close. What we have done. It is indeed a problem. Government may want private school who collect fat fees to come under this law. But now all have to do. Why should government ask them to register? Non of us had actually seen the form. We may be concern for nothing.

However there is a point as to why all schools that are private be seen with same yard stick. Smaller size located in narrow lane of the town and in paddy field are certainly not the same as DAV, International School. We felt that there is a need to create category for such school and then try to think for regularizing them. While bigger school who charge high fees are charged for meanting money being commercial in approach, these private schools are atually doing service to the society. If they were not there, future of many children would have been closed. These schools have given hopes to so many children and saved them from indifferent attitude of the government schools.

What ever may be the source of motivation, teachers and management are concerned about the students and are responsive to the demands of the parents and students.

Akela, Principal of Gyan Jyoti is confident of teaching all subjects. He is Msc in Maths. He happy that he can do so. I felt that he will the right person to start computer aided learning materials (CALM).

I was really impressed with Pureland school. It was certainly more cleaner than other schools.

We covered four schools during the journey namely Government Middle School (GMS) Chorsua, Sarswati Vidya Mandir, chorsha, Bakara Upgraded GMS, SVV public School, Ranabigha. Ranjit, my colleague in Saral Services was with me. It was an interesting day. In my cycle there was less air and hence I was looking for shop where air can be filled. I was told that we can get such shop in Bakara village. Indeed there were two shops but both were closed. Though we did not get cycle shop we got a school. When we reached Ranabigha,it was 5 PM and we decided to stop the journey. Hence I was looking for a place where I can keep the cycles. In Rana bigha we were searching for a location where we can keep our cycle. We asked 4-5 people. Non could help us. While searching, we found a private school where we completed our normal survey and the Principle was ready to keep the cycle.

Sarswathi Vidya Mandir Private School

Finding a school is simple and there are many schools. Government has done its best to cover all children and adhere to the commitement of Education for all. Almost every village there is a school. Still you need private schools to cover children 100%. Almost every village there is a private school. Private schools play complentary roles in providing the universal obligation for education. Ranabigha is close to Biharsharif town. It is seen that there are more private schools in urban area.

Impressive building of Government school, Bakra

Bakra was a rural market place. Bakra and chorsha villages are located on two sides of a river. There is no visible water in the river.

In GMS chorsha there were 13 teachers and Bakra 6 teachers. In Chorsha there were 8 permanent teachers and all of them were qualified MA and Med. In Bakra only two Permanent teachers. Others were on Honorarium. In Private schools Sarswati Viday mandir and SVV School, there were 11 and 9 respectively. But only 3-4 were well qualified. Others were under graduate. No doubt, in Government schools teachers are more qualified. But they all admit that there is better discipline of the children and looking after in Private School. In Private schools, teachers are getting one fourth of the salary of the teachers in Government school, but yet there is greater and constant attention to the children in Private school.

Government schools have better building. Especially Bakra school has two storied building newly constructed. At the same time, number of children are also high. In all four schools, teachers were concerned about quality education.

In Bakra, I met a teacher who was MA in Urdu and now teaching Science. He himself was

Urdu Teacher is wondering how he can teach Science

unhappy that he has no training of science and he had to take science class. This is where we felt that eLearning material could help. He spoke, “What can I teach, I am an art teacher and I have to teach Science in class VII and VIII. I have not learnt them before.” There was visible frustration in the voice.

I felt that eLearning will help them. In the Private school, mostly teachers are not so qualified. They need eLearning support more. Elearning support can make single teacher taking more than one subjects comfortably. But the problem is that Private schools do not have good building to house large number of computers.

Is Private school more expensive. No not these private schools such as Sarswati Vidya Mandir and SVV public school. Per student expenses are about Rs. 80 per child per month in these schools. They charge Rs. 100 per child. Rs. 5 is lost due to late and no collection from some students. Where as in Government per child expenditure is Rs. 150-300 per month. This figure does not include the cost of Mid day meal. Only difference is in private school, Gardian pays cost of education directly, in Government, people pay through tax.

However, low per student expense may not be true for big brand such as DAV Schools.

Both the government schools that I visited were road side and hence there were better teacher attendance. Monitoring does play a role in delivering better education especially in GMS.

Diary keeping of students and parents involvement in Private school

Parents feel comfortable and assured that their children is kept under good discipline in Priavate school. Children learn better. Gardians pay when they send their children to private school knowing the teachers there, is less qualified. They get care for their children. I saw there private school maintains diary for the child where the parents sign regularly. It was good practice of keeping the Gardians involved.

Today, It was nice as Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Project Coordinator joined the journey.

We stopped by Narayan Vidya Mandir School. It was nice to meet the founder Mr. Mithilesh Prasad Singh who once taught in Netrahat. He had a dream when he left Netrahat School during 1991-96 to spread the messgae of quality teaching of Netrahat. He took a pad yatra from Devgarh to Kathmandu taking energy from Rahul Sankritayan examples who used to be a vegabond and the believes in quality education.
He became founding Headmaster of GIP Public School in 2000. He was Headmaster there for ten years. Now he with the help from friends has started new school. He bought land and constructed buidling. Since April he started the class and now there are 150 children. He says “Children are Urja and Urver Man chaha Kheti Kar Sakte Hain.” I felt that he is right we have forgotten it. He tells parents to send children on time and after taking bath. Mostly the children are from rural area. His fees is Rs. 200 per child and he is happy that people pay him and there is no default.

Mr. Mithilesh has an idea of compiling details of public schools in Bihar and their role in education. There is no such book available now. It is nice idea indeed, There is a need for private schools to form a consortium and high light the role of contribution of private concerns in education.

Therafter we went to Tirthankar veerayatan Jain School. It is big and nice. We could not meet the Principal as he was very busy in receiving the chief guest of the School. There are 1022 children and all of them are day scholar. Fee is Rs. 300. There is competetion for the entry. Buses are there to pick child from Biharsharif and Nawada. School is built on the principle of Seva, Shiksha and Sadhana. School is symbol of great service to the society. School has three computer labs with ten computers each. School celebrates Deepawali and for that children had prepared beautiful Rangoli on the floor. School has best of infrastructure and it would be at par with any best school in Delhi. There is a long queue for admission and there is great competetion.

Then we went to MS VidyaMandir. Two couples Manoj and Umesh started the school 1994. Now there are 400 children. There are 100 children in the residential School. We met Rousan Kumar of Mangatbigh. His mother Savitri, we met during my journey. Boy is doing fine now. Rousan studied in Magatbigh government school for 4 years. There was no progress and hence he was sent to MS Vidya Mandir. He has been taken in LKG only. He is doing fine now.
They are not comfortable with class VIII students. Hence there is no regular class for VIII in this school. In this case they only act like a bridge classes for those who are enrolled in Government school and is weak. They help in getting them prepared for the examination.

We also visited three more schools namely Lord Budha Public School, GIP Public School and Krishna Public School. We met their founders and had very interesting discussion. Dr. Banaras has started the school in his own house and placed his recently pass MBA son as Headmaster. He started the school as his brother who is no more now, wanted to start a school. Youngest HM is aware of quality of teaching and wants to introduce computer soon. GIP Public school is the oldest and now there are 700 children there. 400 children are staying in the Hotel. Owner of the GIP Public school is from police service. Non of them had idea of education. But they started as they had land and money to build school building. Luckly he got Mr. Singh as HM in the begining.
Mr. Gopal Krishna was one who impressed me. He did his MA in political science but did not do any job. He did agriculture and bought 3 tractors and rent them to other farmers. He earned money as much as his brother was is lawyor. He felt that he is not given respect in the family. So he decided to start a school. His wife is a school teacher in a government school. What impressed me more that Mr. Gopal remembers names of the students in the school. He remembers number of students are there in the school. He is knows the details of the business. He said, “ School business has Paisa and Prestige. He also felt that we should start computer education in the school. He charges Rs 2000 per month and provide all facilities – lodging, boarding and bed, musquitonet etc.

He feels that education is only in the private school. Government schools are for registration. Sad though but this is the reality.

We started the day after having Satu ka Sarwat (in a Big glass). We got a bus to reach Giriac, but Sanjeev insisted that we should go with him on his mobike. We did but it was punctured midway. Sanjeev has to take the trouble of getting the tube repaired. Ranjit and I took the same bus coming from behind and came to Giriac.

I went to Mangatbigha school, one km from the road. There was no road, I left the cycle and went on narrow pagdandi amist Paddy field. I met Mr. Prasadi Yadav and Mr. Lalu Prasad. Reached the school. School is just beside the banian tree. Very nice view indeed. Lalu sends all his three daughters to GPS. However he not satisfied with the performance of the children. They are not doing well.

Mr. Prasadi was a Inspector of Police. He is happy that he donated the land. But he is not happy that as performance of the children in the school is not good. Infact he has to send his grand son to English medium school. He recalls the land transfer process and he did not have good experience though.  In the picture Mr. Prasadi is standing in front of the school at a distance.

I met Savitri Devi who has three grand children. She was sending all of them in GPS of the village. However she is now sending the eldest Rauson kumar (9 years) to private school in Pawapuri. Two children (very young) to GPS. She felt that school has taken Santosh kumar as a teacher from the village who is doing well but other teachers are not. Teachers do not call for meeting. She will be happy to go for the Parent teacher meeting. Rousan sent to school for three years but now she had to send him to private school as there was no progress. Only two months back August 2011, Rousan was admitted in Private school in LKG class. It was sad though. School was not ready to take him in higher class. She pays Rs. 900 per month and provide snakes and books and uniform. Rest is given by the school.

Santosh Kumar is related to Prasadi yadav who donated the land for the school. He is very sincere and wants to make the school better. He refered to quality education instruction sent by CRC. He showed me 20 points quality education on which he is trying to work. There was a poster of 20 points on the wall.

Later we moved to Raitar Government Middle School (GMS) on the road side. I met two teachers there. Teacher was very proud that school is on the roadside and hence all the teachers are available till 11 am (Saturday). No one leaves before time. Meaning was that roadside school can not afford to relax like other government school. Big officers can come for the inspection anytime. I observed two things – a) There is a fear that inspection can happen anytime. All teachers are present, routines are well prepared. Attendance register of the school is well maintained. b) Teachers are happy that there are regular inspections and all the teachers adhare to norms of being present and taking classes.

World Vision India has donated tables and fund for painting walls and toilets. School has large set of Teaching Learning Materials (TLM). Teacher was happy to show them on request. Teachers use them in the classes when required.

Next we went to Kerala Public School. A couple has started the school. School is now running in new building under construction. Building is partially complete. Buidling belongs to three brothers – one Practicing Compounder (Rural Doctor ) and other two do liquor business in Sewan. They have given the building on rent. There are 350 children housed in the building.

School fees is Rs. 200 per month. He has to over 1.5 lakh dues as some parents have not paid. Not because they can not pay but becasue they do not want to pay. One who did not pay are not poor. He was very upset with such people. He is happy here and getting big cooperation from the people. Government of Bihar has asked all the schools to take registration by November 12. Schools can be resigtered under SSA.

Next we went to two more private schools, Namdhari and Gyan Deep close to Pawapuri. Both were residential. They are located on road side at half km distance apart.

Namdhari is small (35 children) run by a family while Gyan Deep has 200 children run by two friends. One of the friend was running road side Dhaba. He has converted the Dhaba into school. School still has the same counter of the Dhaba as office for the headmaster. Infrasturcture is ok. Has clean toilet. Has two computers but they are not used as lack of teacher. Namdhari also has computer. Children who come to stay and study are mostly from Nalanda, Nawada, Madhubani Districts. Parents who have gone to Delhi/ Kolkata for earning they leave their children in these schools. These parents are from income group of Rs. 10000 to 20000. In Central Government, a pion gets Rs. 10000. He can afford to send his child for this school.

While I was riding the cycle on the road I was thinking…… a) Teachers do not mind if there are frequent inspections  b) Teachers would like that teachers follow norms and teach in the classes. c) We can develop indicators based on the 20 points of quality standards and for using MIS monitoring online. Will it improve the quality of learning in Schools……

Another question I was pondering was……
As Prasadi, will other retired government staff, teachers, Army staff donate land to private society for running schools in the village???
Does Private school serve the poor section?

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?

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.

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.

Date: October 17, 2011

Heritage School to Shishu Niketan Nalanda

Only 40% of the invited participants turned up in Gyan Abhiyan Workshop held on October 16, 2011 and some of them left in between the workshop. I felt that lot more has to be done by our team to connect with people in education sector in Nalanda District. Hence it was a concern for the organization and the project. Well, I felt that I should try to address this during my Gyan Abhiyan.

There were couple of logistic concerns such as where we will stay in the night where we will have food and how we will wash our cloths etc. I said we will find a suitable way out. Perhaps we may come back to Rajgir by bus leaving the cycles. Next we will again go there and start the journey for Gyan Abhiyan.

I needed a concrete task for the journey. Baseline survey of 60 schools was the correct work for the journey. Hence we decided to cover 60 schools during Gyan Abhiyan and do the baseline survey as required by the project.

Sanjeev took me to Nalanda Heritage site where 1500 years ago (5th century BC) there was world famous University. Thanks to Sanjeev, it was really inspiring to be at the site that was a great center of learning. It was absolutely great feeling to be there before starting the journey.

Ranjeet Kumar joined me for the journey. Sanjeev, our project coordinator came to first school, Nalanda Heritage School, where from we started our journey for Gyan Abhiyan. Principal of School wished us a successful journey. Other colleagues wanted to joined, I discouraged them as they need to attend to their own responsibility in the project. Ranjeet and I started the journey at 12 noon from Nalanda Heritage School.

Schools visited
a. Nalanda Heritage School: A private school fully owned and managed by Col. RS Nehra. The school is residential for 100 children and 80 Day Boarding students. School has good class rooms, living rooms, dining hall, toilets and play ground. Above all, there is great level of security. Perhaps, in Bihar even that is also essential. There are alround development here. Games, painting and regular learning all are there. Students are doing well. Quality of education is high.

Perhaps we need one such schools at all the Panchayats in Nalanda District. Only then Quality education can be delivered to majority of children in the District.

b. Juafar Bazar Middle School: Governemt School. Children were having enregy and happy. School has four teachers including Head master. Head master has many non-academic work and hence school has to depend on three teachers. One of them not available he is not well. Therefore there only two teaches effectively available for 358 students of class I to VIII. Actual attendance in about 200. Hence ratio is 100 children per teacher.

c. Shishu Gyan Niketan: Private School in Nalanda. It has five rooms and 135 students. 80 of them stay in the hostel. Rest are Day boarder. I met Mr. Niraj Shah who has come to school to drop his 5 year old child. Niraj works in Kolkata. Since he has to stay in Kolkata for work, it is more safe to keep the children here.

Interesting persons met:
1. Col. RS Nehra: A retired colonel from Army who was also the founding Principal of Sainik School Rajgir. He is in Bihar since 2002 and fallen in love with the place. After retirement, set up Nalanda Heritage School in 10 acre of land using all his savings. He believes that people in Bihar are nice and intelligent. School has hostel facility for 100 children. It has 180 children including Day boarding students who come from near by towns such as Biharsharif and Rajgir.

Our President Dr. Kalam said that we should start Providing Urban facilities in Rural Area (PURA) and Col. RS Nehra has shown the way. He did not wait for any assistance from Government, Doner agency or Bank. He did it. Where there is a will there is a way.

2. Mr. Uday Kumar: Youngest and Dynamic Head master of Middle School Juafar Bazar. 5 years back he joined Government School. He is dynamic head master of the government school. He still has hopes that situation will change in Government schools. He has lot of ideas. If the Government schools are not there then many children will not be able to see school. His father was also in education. He is keen to participate in eLearning program of Saral Services. Because, School needs more teachers. Any help in that regard is wellcome. While being in Government, he is positive and has lot of ideas.