Swanirvar, a non Government Organization started its journey from 1990. In the initial days, Swanirvar experimented for several years as to how education could be made enjoyable and how to unleash the creative potential of children. Experiments had been carried out to make education relevant to the immediate context of the rural children, encourage them to ask questions and evaluate them in such a way that it helped them to grow rather than feeling small.
In mid 1990, we carried out a survey on the primary and pre-primary children of Chandalati Village under Kolsur Gram Panchayat of Deganga Block. At that time, Chandalati was famous for supplying Arsenic affected patient to the city hospital. 95% of the total population was Muslim and living below the poverty limit. We found that most of the parents were illiterate and had no much interested in education. At that situation, we started a learning centre, ‘PATHABHABAN’ in that village. We had five objectives behind this:
1. To assist the poor and weaker children in their studies.
2. To use local and available materials as teaching – learning materials
3. To make them aware on local history, geography and culture.
4. To encourage the creative activities amongst the children.
5. To bring an environment so that the student got the values of Education (group activity, tolerance, morality etc)
Our PATHABHABAN model became very popular. In 1992, we converted PATHABHABAN into a pre-primary school (for class I-IV). Vikramshila Education Resource Society gave us initial trainings to our teachers. We never gave stress to the regular syllabus, but we gave more stress on learning from the surroundings. From 1996, a new primary department started in that school. The difference of our school is listed below:
Activities in Govt. School:
• Syllabus oriented – classroom based teaching.
• No classroom decoration- no use of chart, poster in the classroom.
• Inadequate use of Teaching Learning Materials( TLMs)
• No sitting plan, use of benches in most of the schools – no group activities
• Teachers don’t encourage – creative activities like singing, dancing, drama, painting etc
• In many schools, special days are being celebrated but these are not planned by the student, they have very minimum role in school programme.
• No library facility.
• No strategy for managing the advance and weaker students and student with physical and mental difficulties.
• Most of the schools do not have sufficient teachers in comparison with student numbers.
• School in-charge (head of the school) are busy with non-academic activities throughout the year.
• Teachers get trainings but the new methods are not introduced due to lack of follow up and motivation by the superiors.
• Parents are not involved in the Education system.
Activities in our School:
• Adequate no of TLMs in the classroom and use of TLMs.
• Group activities.
• Learning local History, Geography and Environment and culture. Map making, survey etc
• Decorated classroom- use of chart poster in the classroom
• Encourage in paintings, dancing, drama and all kind of cultural activities, Sahitya sabha, wall painting, etc.
• Hand held experiments in science classes.
• Separate class room for – English study.
• Children committees for cleanliness, library, drinking water & sanitation, sports, notice board, etc.
• Special days celebrating by the children.
• Involving parents and ex-students by regular meetings and workshops.
• Pen friendship with local and international schools.
• Special class on Art & Craft.
• Annual sports, field trip etc
• Regular writings by the children
• Use of Audio-visual equipments in the classes.
• Workshop with teachers; teachers empowerment trainings
• Regular follow up, cross visit etc child to child approach
• Special attention for the advance and weak children.
From 1996 to till this year, more than 500 students had come out from that village and its surrounding hamlets. In, June 2011 we made a review committee to analyze the impacts of our activities and its effects on the societies. We had found the followings:
1. The students learnt many hand held activities in school, like measurement, survey, seed collection etc. They had found its applications in their life. Most of them are now farmers or doing business. They had found the utility of measurement, survey etc in their life.
2. We had regular cultural activities, Sahitya Sabha in our school. Now some of our students had become famous in High Schools and colleges for their creative writings and singing.
3. There were sessions on drawings, map makings etc in the schools. Our students who are now in high schools, colleges and in Universities had expressed the usefulness in their future studies.
4. We had children committees in our school and these committees had specific roles and responsibilities. Some of our students who are now in active politics and are representing their societies have found its usefulness. Most of our ex-students had claimed that they did not have any toilets in their homes but they had forced their parents to make latrine with help of local Panchayat. They were inspired by the cleaning committee programme.
5. Chandalati was a Muslim dominated village. There was a social prohibition on playing drums and music and dancing, etc. But school had helped them to come out from these barriers. Presently, many of our students who were now in high schools and colleges were regularly performing dance, drama and playing drum etc Some of them were representing their present institutions, too.
6. Our ex-students also told that they were helping the younger brother and sisters in their studies. Some of them also take classes in our schools.
7. One of our main successes was to involve the parents in education system. We gave more stress on local history, Geography and Environment studies. The students got the data from their parents that had made the parents more inquisitive on school education. Many parents came in the parents meetings and also were involved in the workshops. We made such an environment in these meetings and workshops so that a so call illiterate mother also got scope to covey her opinions in the meetings.
Reported by:
Evaluation Team, Swanirvar
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