Class apart

Even in the remote, forest terrain of Hazaribagh where the local MP and Union External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha is considered a perso...

Even in the remote, forest terrain of Hazaribagh where the local MP and Union External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha is considered a persona non-grata by the armed Maoists, an existing building has overnight acquired a thatched roof and children are pouring in every morning to attend school 8212; a privilege, considering the backwardness of the area. The Maoists, not wanting to alienate locals, went by popular sentiment and allowed the alternate school to come up.

Alternate schools are becoming more and more popular as the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan persists with its universal education drive. All that the small village community school has to do is to decide on a place.

A generous landlord may hand over two rooms in his building; the mud floor below a leafy banyan will also suffice and the school can operate out of the gram sewak8217;s ramshackle office. Or it can even function from the local temple, even the panchayat community centre will do.

Once the place is found and the locals come up with a list of 15 to 20 students, the Union Government is now handing over money to the state government to pay a school teacher and start a primary school.

The teacher, if he is a man, needs to be a matriculate. If she is a woman, education till Std VIII is considered adequate. And since the teacher is expected to be from the same village, a monthly salary of Rs 1,000 would be given for the few hours that he or she puts in.

HRD Ministry officials say the feedback they are receiving about these schools from backward states like UP and Bihar is overwhelming. The groundswell of support for this programme is such that overnight locations are being found to set up these schools and teachers are being chosen from among the locals.

These teachers, with their limited qualifications, can easily teach students till Std V. Some states like UP, which have a huge percentage of students who do not know what a classroom looks like, are being snobbish and are insisting that these teachers should not be allowed to teach beyond Std II.

Story continues below this ad

HRD ministry officials say they are organising an elaborate teachers8217; training programme for the instructors. Separate 30-day courses are being held for them and this year alone 95,000 alternate schools are being created to target a probable student strength of 6 million.

The Government8217;s assessment, going by the feedback they have received from the states, is that a spurt is really happening now, more than two years after the Abhiyan was launched. From a few hundred, alternate schools have shot up to a decent figure of over 20,000 in the current calendar year.

And the alternate school is only a temporary solution. Once these schools increase the demand for more teachers, proper infrastructure will be created and more qualified teachers provided. By early 2006, the Government expects to start building proper schools at alternate school sites or in the neighbourhood where they are functioning now.

There is also no hesitation to give credit to MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh for showing the way. His education guarantee scheme launched in the early 1990s has apparently helped Central education planners to formulate the alternate school programme under the Abhiyan scheme.