Government school

We visited a government school in Rishikesh to see if we could start a collaboration and send teachers there on placement. Due to pandemic, it’s been difficult to reach schools as they were closed for such a long time. The schools had several years when learning was on line. Although the offer meant that some families had no access to learning for the whole period.

I met with Anitaji who was retiring as Head from a small primary school in Rishikesh. On the day we met, although she had retired, she was in school. Her replacement was on long term sick and no one had been sent to replace her. Anitaji had taken her initiative and come into support the teachers and pupils. This, she said, was indicative of the state of affairs in primary schools in India. Despite being given resources in abundance (including uniform, books, lunchtime food, fruit once per week, milk etc), staffing was a huge issue. The school building also looked in a state of disrepair, even though the headteacher spoke about putting all funding into improving the facilities.

Their falling school roll reflected the inability to recruit and pay for a teacher at the school. Classes were large and with 50 children, there was only 1 qualified teacher. The other adult was unqualified and the headteacher was covering her salary at Rs 2, 000 per both. There is a risk that sadly, the school could be closed.

The headteacher expressed the frustration around the teacher crisis in India. The issue, she felt were the fees to qualify as a teacher. It cost £80,000 per year and teacher training was 2 years (post graduation). There were no more than 3 teachers in every school and this was a challenge due to student numbers.

Anitaji spoke about her reading and writing priorities and I was impressed with the older children were able to answer my questions in English, using full sentences. They all loved English and this was reflected in their big smiles as they spoke. Anitaji was open to placements and was encouraged that qualified teachers could support. She was also interested in training although said that the government provided training for teachers. There was no in house training. Their IT equipment would not be sufficient as there was no Wi-Fi and no computer with a camera. This was such a stark difference to Mother Miracle and even DPSM that had a suite of computers. The difference being that they were charity schools and independent to any government interference.

By Komilla Datta.