The buck never reaches here
Well – the first month of my six month sabbatical is over. I had promised myself that before the month ended, I would kick off some ‘real’ action. And, well, it could not have got more ‘real’ than my mind-boggling journey to Bhatiwara, the adivasi village where I had gone to flag off my journey to what I loosely, somewhat stupidly, and totally inadequately termed as ‘understanding rural education’. Basically, I just want to see first-hand what our education system is meting out to those children who live and pass away without ever coming in the radar of us ‘city-folk’ – the children living in the remotest parts of Bharat, which India is only vaguely aware of...
Bhatiwara is 25 km or so from Seoni, which is roughly midway between Nagpur and Jabalpur. And that is about the best I can do in terms of coordinates. Bhatiwara does not exist on any map of Madhya Pradesh that I could find online. A Google Search for ‘Bhatiwara’ asks me, rather condescendingly, ‘Did you mean Bhanwara?’... I feel like being condescending right back, and say, ‘NO. I meant Bhatiwara, all right.’.... but Google thumbs its nose at me and refuses to give me that option. I then try ‘Bhatiwada’ .... Google retorts with, ‘Did you mean Khatiwada..?’ ... and proceeds to give me a list of people with the surname ‘Bhatiwada’ on Facebook. I give up....
Why Bhatiwara? Mainly because it is one of the MOST backward and inaccessible areas that I am personally aquainted with, but also because we have a base there – having acquired an expanse of wasteland there last year, which Sudarshan is now trying to convert into a model organic farm, Udayan... and, I think, to his credit and that of his team, succeeding...
So, when I decided to start my ill defined and ill planned journey of understanding the problem of education in remote rural areas, and the accompanying personal ‘soul search’, this seemed to be the most natural place to start.
This was my third visit to the farm, and Bhatiwara. It was the second time I actually stayed on the farm, and the first time I stayed on the farm ‘alone’. By ‘alone’ here, I mean with the local village people, with no family member or friend accompanying me.
The two days I spent by myself in Bhatiwara provoked colossal amounts of thought, which I intend putting down lest they get obscured. I plan to share various thoughts that occupied my mind during the trip – how bad really is the state of education there, how does one deal with marginalisation - and even before that, whether to deal with marginalisation. (Yes, you heard right - that was a real question in my mind.) And of course, share anecdotes and lessons learnt from the journey. If in the process some discussions and ideas are generated on how to put Bhatiwara and other such forgotten places on the map of India, and the map of education - great.. !
So... here goes.. the Bhatiwara diaries – in episodic form...
The Bhatiwara school was set up in 2001, prior to which the village kids of all ages just gathered around under a largish tree under the tutelage of a single ‘masterji’. Now there is a primary and middle school there, with about 250 students in all. The primary and the middle school each has 2 regular teachers, and 1 ‘para’ teacher.
2 + 1 = 0
As I mentioned, my main reason for spending time at Bhatiwara this time was to spend time at the school and ‘understand rural education’. See for myself exactly how sad is the state of education there.. well, what can I say, except that I went expecting the worst - and well, I was not at all disappointed in that – saw some really depressing stuff.
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| Juloos's 'open' school |
Initially, my visit generated mild interest among the teachers. Once satisfied that I was not affiliated with any Govt or other agency and was not going to send any report to anybody, they went about their day as usual, leaving me well alone.
The problem is, they left the kids well alone too... I spent the best part of two days in the school. There was not a SINGLE class held. Not one. The kids just come for the mid day meals, and simply go away after that.
On the second day, I got desperate and asked one of the teachers, Bhikamji, to take a class, giving him a ‘I have come from so far just for this...’ spiel. “Class?”, he said, as if I had mentioned some taboo word... and then, resignedly, "Achcha, aap bol rahe hain toh class le hi lete hain..”. He then led me to the room where class 4 and 5 students waited. The girls sat in neat rows, while many of the boys passed time by beating each other up. Anyway, I was relieved that I was finally going to see some action... but nahi... Bhikamji just said some perfunctory words to the class, and left suddenly...leaving me standing in front of the class. Left holding the babies...
After 45 minutes, he reappeared... probably hoping I would have magically vanished during this time... Seeing I was still standing my ground, he wrote a few math problems on the board, and told the class “Yeh ho jaye, toh yeh madam ko dikha dena...” and beat a retreat again.
Well, I struggled for the next 1.5 hours, realising that even most of the class 5 kids did not know how to read numbers, order numbers, subtract or multiply... I had a tough time, trying to teach some of hem the basics – that too in Hindi...
Some of the kids were quite bright, grasping what I said quickly...others struggled, dulled by years of apathy...
As I left the 5th grade classroom, I noticed the huge poster on the wall behind the teacher’s desk: “SANGHARSH HI JEEVAN KA NAAM HAI”. As if these kids, who are not sure where the next meal is coming from, need any reminding...
The bhatiwara primary school has 2 regular teachers and 1 para teacher. One of the regular teachers it seems only makes a guest appearance once in a while at the school – needless to say, he did not appear once during the time that I was there... I tried talking to some teachers to understand their problems. “We need more teachers...there is too much work...”, all of them said...
2 regular + 1 para teacher for 150 odd kids.... not a bad ratio AT ALL ... but resultant benefits for the kids? 0. Zilch. Cipher.
2 + 1 = 0.
QED? I hope not....
QED? I hope not....
But, what IS the real reason why there is no class?
ReplyDeleteThe teachers are just not interested in teaching, barring one or two rare ones...
ReplyDeleteThe 'head' teacher, who was posted here in 2001, initially stayed in the village and put his kids in this school - but later shifted to a small town nearby and shifted his kids to an 'English medium' school there.
BAsically the 8 out of 10 teachers are doing this purely for the salary and job security... the village is very much in the interior and they are just biding their time till they get posted to a 'better' place.....
The villagers claim that the English medium school I mentioned earlier and schools that are more accessible to the Education dept officials are 'better'. I intend visiting these during my next visit...to see if this is really true..
ReplyDeleteI liked that one about "Whether to deal with marginalisation"! been thinking about the same. "Sangharsh ka naam Jeevan" is a gem - reminds me of my early school times - a war zone it was.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would really like to read here - separately is about you - even while observing and learning a lot about them and their ways, I am sure lots o f thoughts about yourself too would have crossed. It would mean a lot to me to hear about what is going on inside you - before going while there and now after returning. Each of experiences tend to condition us inthe way we see ourselves andthe world around us - did this experience have any such impact on you?