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Journalism of Courage
Every morning, Aditi Parthe sets off from her house at 9am for a 3.5 km hour-long walk to the Nigudaghar Zilla Parishad school in Pune’s Bhor taluka. At 5 pm, she walks the same route back to her maternal aunt’s hut. Her father and maternal uncle work as daily wage porters at Market Yard in Pune, while her mother lives with her elder brother at the father’s village.
No one in her house owns a smartphone, and there are no functional computers in the school. So when the 12-year-old became one of the 25 students selected for Pune Zilla Parishad’s (ZP) organised visit to NASA scheduled for later this year, joy was abundant.
In collaboration with the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), 75 ZP schools students from classes 6 and 7 were selected through three stages of tests ending in August. 50 of these students embarked on a three-day tour to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Thiruvananthapuram on October 6, and the other 25 will be travelling to NASA. A Class 7 student, Parthe, who has never even travelled by train, will take off from Mumbai to visit the headquarters of the world’s top space agency in the US.
Sitting in the headmaster’s cabin at her school, Parthe recalled with teary eyes: “When sir (headmaster) told my aunt, she was so happy she did not know what to say. My mother was the happiest. I called her at 7 in the morning to tell her that I will be going to America. Usually, I am the one calling her but she called me 15 times that day.”
As many as 13,671 students appeared for the first MCQ exam round and the top 10 per cent from each block were selected for the second round, where they had to appear for an online MCQ test. As the school did not have any computers, headmaster Ashok Bandal used his personal laptop to teach the students selected for the second round the basics of operating a computer. As many as 235 students were selected for the final round that involved personal interview at IUCAA. Questions were asked about biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and geography.
“After the news of her getting selected was reported by local media, she has been given a cycle and bags. We have requested a laptop as well,” says Varsha Kuthwad, Parthe’s school teacher. “Aditi is good at sports, elocution, and even dance. There is something different about her,” she boasts.
Parthe’s aunt Mangal Kank has raised her since childhood. “None of us have even seen an aeroplane, let alone thought of travelling in it. It is a matter of huge pride for us. In our village, there is no alternative to becoming a porter if you don’t get educated. So we hope our children learn and get a respectable post, be it a government job or of a scientist,” she says.
Bandal agreed that most of the village population had moved to Mumbai or Pune for daily wage work. Managing a rural school of 62 students with four teachers in an hilly area is also no easy task. He explains, “The situation of our school is such that we have students from many small villages such as Golewadi, Karanje, and Devgarh. If there is a lot of rain, there is a bridge near Golewadi where water falls on it from the hill. It becomes risky to come to school and naturally we have lower attendance then.”
Kank’s house has borne the brunt of the harsh monsoon in Maharashtra this year—water has seeped through the walls and the floor of the kitchen. Only being able to use a smartphone when she visits her mother during holidays, Parthe has extremely limited access to the digital world. She is not quite aware of what NASA is, or what to expect in the US. Even though she understands English, speaking the language remains elusive. IUCAA says that it will conduct additional sessions with the students to build familiarity and help them plan their travel.
Visa process ongoing
Gajanan Patil, CEO of Pune Zila Parishad told The Indian Express, “It has been perceived that students from ZilLa Parishad Schools do not get much exposure. So, we thought of sending these meritorious students to NASA and ISRO so that their scientific temperament is created and they get interested in astronomy or any branch of science. This is part of our Pune Model School concept.”
The ZP facilitated tatkal passport procurement for all 25 students going to NASA and has now applied for an expedited group tourist visa at the US Consulate General (CG) Mumbai. “I spoke with the CG and I think we will get a group appointment immediately. The students will probably leave for the US in November.” Patil also confirmed that Deputy Chief Minister and Pune Guardian Minister Ajit Pawar had written to the consulate for an expedited visa process.
Three ZP school teachers, two staff from IUCAA, and a medical officer will be travelling with the students on the NASA tour. The total budget outlay of the scheme is around Rs 2.2 crore and comes the from ZP and District Planning Development Committee (DPDC).
Samir Dhurdhe, incharge of SciPOP at IUCAA, said they are pulling all strings to ensure that Marathi-speaking Indian-origin scientists at NASA can meet the students and interact with them in their mother tongue.
