Village School Master

“This is not a Government School but a Private School….it is my Private School. It is better than any private school in the district and I run it not like a government school, “ said Acharya Shanubhai Rathod, the Principal of a Primary Government School in Sindhot, Bharuch District of Gujarat, as I stepped out after a visit there recently.

This was not a boastful comment but I had to agree with the middle aged man.

When I walked into the school, I was struck by its cleanliness despite its old structure. Principal Rathod came out to greet us. Our first pit stop was Ram Haat. This was a wooden chest on which were kept simple toffees, imli ladoo and small things in jars. The principal explained that we do not want children to go out during lunch hour to buy these things they love to savour after their mid-day meal. I get all these things when I come from Bharuch City everyday. Almost all the things cost just Re 1! The store is manned by kids generally in class 2 or 3 who stand there and it is expected that the children who buy the stuff drop the coins into the plastic container kept there on their own, without anyone asking for it. If someone gets a note, it is put in a tin piggy bank. Honesty is still the best policy at least in some part of the world even today. Ram Rajya ka Ram Haat.

We were offered cold water in steel glasses. When I said I had just had water in the car, the Principal took offence and thought I doubted the quality of water being served. He explained that the school gets good sweet water from River Narmada flowing nearby and the same passes through a big filter and thence goes to a cooler donated by a corporate. The cooler is turned on just for an hour and it cools the water for the entire day. There is a water station outside from where children take water. Apologetically I gulped the entire glass of cold water in one go as we were taken around the water station which was manned by 3 kids who are part of the school water committee. No one else is allowed into the filter and cooler room.

My eyes went to the footwear of the children kept in one part of the school…they were so colourful but what struck me was the way these children had kept them…completely in order. Take a look and you will want to show it to your kids. This clearly showed how much the Principal ensured discipline and decorum in his Private School. It was over here a painter who was making the Hand Washing poster in the school, stopped me and said that he had worked in many schools before but had never seen a better school with better mannered children. This school was different. This definitely was not tutored as the man was there only for a day or two before moving on to another school. This was a wonderful live testimonial.

As we proceeded towards the refurbished toilets, there was a huge area which had plants and trees. The Principal explained that the water which seeps out of the water station or the hand washing area is brought to this place where he had created a kitchen garden with fresh okra, lemon, lauki and many other vegetables. These vegetables are used to make the mid day meals and when in excess is never sold but distributed among the children of the school. Everything grown there is organic and no fertilizer or pesticide is used. While walking he plucked a bhindi straight from the shrub and bit it….he said it can’t be cleaner and fresher than this as it had grown on ‘desh ki mitti’. He said the monkeys in the village were a menace and they often had to drive them away to protect the vegetables. But one child, who the Principal said was mentally challenged, remarked,” Sir they too must be hungry. Why are we driving them away?”

Coming to the toilets we are building and refurbishing in schools in the district. I was taken aback by a beautifully and exotically made toilet. I thought how come we were supposed to build frugal utilitarian ones and why did the NGO concerned spurge on such luxury. Fortunately, we were told that this had been built under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan and is for the physically disabled kids with a ramp to make the movement easier. Built at a cost of Rs 2 lacs, the toilet looked great but when asked if the school had any such student who needed the special toilet, the Principal said this is Government directive and maybe we will have some in future when it will be used…. Anyway we saw our simple toilets and hand wash station being built there through our company’s CSR efforts to make sure children clean their hands and avoid diseases.

Near the hand wash stand we put up a poster like this- The F Diagram. F stands for food, fingers, faecal, field, fly, fluid….all sources of diseases caused when cleanliness and hand washing is not done properly. We asked some students there to explain the diagram and the proper way to clean your hands. They perfectly demonstrated it and told us about the F Diagram. Any guess what if we were to ask our city bred children what F stands for it will be FCUK or an anagram of the same!

All credit to the Principal here, the attendance in the school is almost 100% and hardly children would stay away due to ailment!

Next stop was a quick peep into the class rooms where children of 2 classes were put in one class room and one teacher teaches children of both the classes- 1 & 2 together, 3 & 4 together…only class 7 had a separate teacher. It had nothing to do with the principal possibly but the teachers all were very engrossed and were teaching the kids with vigour. The school also has a Computer Room with 11 computers, LED TV and internet connection which works…saw one teacher actually working on the net! Digital India is happening in the backyard of the nation and not just at Bengaluru and Cyberabad.

The school has two unique things of which I must surely tell you. First is a box kept on one of the supporting pillars is a open box written ‘khoya-paya’ or ‘lost & found’. The kids if they find anything which does not belong to them, they put it in the box and the person who would have lost it picks it up from there. It is completely voluntary and under no supervision. I saw spoons, pencils, items of geometry box lying there.

The second is a part of village history- the gong. The Principal showed me the marking on the reverse…made 125 years ago. It is hung there but used only in the morning as the sound travels far and wide and children throughout the village know it is school time. Acharya Rathod is a proud student of the same school and he recollects how as a kid he would be in the fields helping his father at work when on hearing the gong he would rush home, change and reach the school well in time. For the normal things during the day within the school, they now have a electric bell….tringggg… tringggg…

All the primary schools in Gujarat have School Sabhas or democratically elected students and ministers and they manage many a thing like ensuring cleanliness, gardening, cultural functions, etc. What fascinated me was the way the election process is conducted with a proper file, each candidate is given symbols, nomination paper needs to be filled and they put a mark with a yellow highlighter in place of indelible ink to prevent double voting. This is democracy at its grassroots…much beyond Panchayati Raj.

As I finished the school tour, I asked Rathodji if I could buy the jelly sweets from Ram Haat and distribute it to all the 90 students of the school…he readily agreed…called a few children to take the container to all the classes to distribute. I put in my Rs 100 note in the tin bank. He wanted to return the balance Rs 10 to which I requested if we children too could also be given one jelly each…after all we students had learnt a lot about village schools which if taken care by good teachers and principals can be the nursery for India Tomorrow.

After this visit, we were taken to the banks of Narmada River for some rest. It was so serene and peaceful and across the river we could see a white temple. That was Kabir Vad. History says when Kabir along with his disciples once came to the banks of the river, he planted a stick in the soil which today remains as one of the largest banyan tree anywhere in the world. In a world full of hatred and intolerance, Sant Kabir said about true knowledge of life:

पोथी पढ़ि पढ़ि जग मुआ,  पंडित भया न कोय,

ढाई आखर प्रेम का, पढ़े सो पंडित होय।

SS