Murali Krishna*, a daily wage worker in Telangana, was tensed as his daughter was suffering from high fever. He had no money left for his daughter’s treatment. However, his younger son, Ashok*, who is studying in upper primary school, told his father not to worry about the treatment and assured to help him with Rs 2,000 for the medical expenses. Murali was surprised! Later, when he asked Ashok, the young boy said that he had been saving his pocket money of Rs 1 and Rs 2 in his school, throughout the year.
Interestingly, it’s not just Ashok but all the students at the Upper Primary School of NG Hukrana Government School in Sangareddy district of Telangana have been saving all their little pocket money in the Sarojini Naidu Children’s Bank, a registry of each student’s savings, started by their headmaster, Mohammad Akbar.
This is one of many initiatives that Akbar has taken in his nearly 10-year tenure as headmaster of his school. The Principal makes sure that the students are growing up with good habits and values. He is not imposing any of these changes forcibly, but creating an environment where the students embrace these changes wholeheartedly.
In 2013, the school received the Best School Award in 2013, while Akbar was conferred with the Best Teacher Award.
The school has students from Class 1 to 7, and are taught in both in Telugu and English medium. The school has students from almost all the social backgrounds, including Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST). Although the school was Telugu-medium initially, it started teaching in English medium, too, for which they have been getting good response from students and parents.
The News Minute caught up with the Akbar ‘Sir’ midst his online classes.
When I joined this school in November 2010 as the headmaster, I was the only government teacher and there were a couple of Vidya volunteers. The school then had a strength of only 25 students. They were not wearing uniforms and were not attending the school regularly as most of them were child labourers.
I used to go to the houses of these students, speak to their parents and convince them to send their children to the school. It worked for many of them.
Besides, initially, there were no benches for students to sit in classrooms. Through crowdfunding from a community of parents and other residents, we bought them benches, developed toilets, set up drinking water facilities, and even painted walls with colourful pictures and motivational quotes.
We also started collecting funds for the poor children, for which there is a donation box in our school. Parents or officials who visit our school would put some amount in that box. With that money, we bought uniforms, books, stationery, shoes and other material for children whose families could not afford to send them to school at all. This encouraged them to come to school.
With all these measures, our strength started increasing gradually. Now, about 145 students come to regularly and we monthly certificates to students who have 100% attendance.
We introduced the concept of Little Doctors two years ago. In every class, whoever is neat and tidy — with combed hair and trimmed nails — would be given a white coat. They would be in charge of the class and have to monitor other students. This has brought in a lot of changes in children, to the extent that their parents started getting surprised. Some students started taking bath daily, came in neatly folded uniforms and used to get ready by themselves, without their parents' help. In these couple of years, we have given about 75 little white coats to these students and they feel very happy and proud when they receive one.
We ensure clean toilets in school and have set up mirrors with comb and powder tins at certain locations so that children can look at themselves and ensure they are neat.
Our school is plastic-free. To discourage students from using plastic bottles, our teachers have pooled in money and have given thermal water bottles to all students. There is a water bell that goes on thrice a day, to remind children to drink water.
And every month, all school staff, including me, would donate 5% of our salary towards the welfare activities of students.
We have a digital classroom, too, and a computer period for every class in a day.
The Vivekananda Honesty store is an aluminium box where we put all emergency stationery items, such as pencils, pens, books and others. A student is in charge of that box and will take care of the tally. Whenever a child needs an item at school, they will buy these at MRP (maximum retail price). When a student does not have money, they can inform the in-charge and pick up what he/she needs and pay when they have money. We have not come across any mistakes or lapses in the calculation so far.
We started this initiative to inculcate honesty among the children. We want to make them responsible for their own actions. Children will do better when they know that someone trusts them.
Along with this we also have Sarojini Naidu Children’s Bank, which is in the form of a register maintained by a teacher. Children save all their daily pocket money in this, irrespective of the amount, and give it to the teacher-in-charge. Every student will have a page in the register assigned to them. They can deposit and withdraw the amount they desire whenever they need, by mentioning the cause. We have about Rs 75,000 from the children’s savings so far, which is deposited in the school’s bank account.
This was started to inculcate the habit of saving money among the students. In some cases, the money that the children have saved has come to the rescue of their parents, too.
If students have not withdrawn any amount during their academic years in the school, we return it when they leave the school, along with their Transfer Certificate. We also add an extra sum to that amount, as a gift from the school.
All these initiatives have brought in positive change among the students, parents, teachers and our village community as well. Whenever we are in need of money, they would be open to help us, as they see the results in the school. Even elderly citizens come forward and donate some amount from their pension for the welfare of their grandchildren.
Every year, we conduct a common Aksharabhyasam programme for the newly-admitted students, along with all parents, and give them a black slate as a gift.
Parents also actively take part in school activities. Some have said that they are happy that their children are studying here.
Several non-governmental organisations and school alumni have also helped us in setting up our school infrastructure.
Many organisations from various states have also visited our school to study the changes that we have adopted. District Education officers, too, have lauded our work, while neighbouring schools have also implemented similar activities.
We started online classes for our students recently. We, the teachers, discuss and coordinate among ourselves regarding the lessons on WhatsApp. We then send voice messages to the students about the daily lesson as well as important messages on maintaining their health and personal hygiene.
Students who do not have digital equipment in their homes visit the school where televisions and projector screens have been set up. They listen to the classes sitting there.
We ensure they maintain physical distance by allowing only one student per bench. We frequently sanitise these benches, too. Even before these online classes started, some parents, who were going to work during the lockdown, used to drop their children in the school. These students used to spend time most of their time in the school.
For some students, we managed to collect some amount from donors and bought smartphones for them.
When I was a child, many of us could not afford quality education due to various reasons. I do not want the same for the current generation of students, even for those who cannot afford education. Everybody has the right to quality education. And without the kind of community support that we are receiving right now, all our activities would not have been possible.
(*Names changed on request)