For tribal kids of this MP village, an open ground is their first and only school

47 children in age group 6 to 14 years study together in this school

school-mp

An interesting scenario unfolds every morning in the remote Jamunihai village of Madhya Pradesh's Panna district. In a recently cleaned open ground in front of the local anganwadi, over 40 children in the age group of six to 14 years gather and soon a class of basic education starts under the watchful eye of a lone teacher.

Though there is no wall, roof or blackboard, the tribal children soon get engrossed in their lessons, imparted orally or sometimes with the help of a cell phone by the teacher Rajendra Upadhayay. There are fun games and activities too.

Welcome to the special government school at Jamunihai that was started almost at the end of the academic session 2019-20 in January second week and is now preparing the children to be able to take upon normal curriculum at the commencement of a new session in April this year. Here, children of different ages study the same basics, simply because none of them went to school ever. About 47 children in the village of 38 families—35 of them of the Gond tribe—were out of school and engaged in work like grazing of goats or collecting firewood from nearby forest.

Things changed in January when a team of local NGO Prithvi Trust visited the village as part of a project called Dastak that aim to empower communities to seek their rights and decide upon their own development. The team found that numerous children were out of school and during discussions with the community, along with the kids, asked them whether they wanted to go to school.

Having received reply in the affirmative, the team decided to take up the issue with the district administration and also pitch in with support through the NGO by the way of making available basic education material like text and note books, pencils and others.

“Soon a group of 15 children was formed and they were counselled and tasked to encourage all children to join school. Meanwhile, we had discussions with district administration and collector Karmvir Sharma approved a temporary school for the village mid-session. A teacher was also immediately posted here,” Ravikant Pathak of Prithvi Trust told THE WEEK.

The children’s group managed to convince their peers and within a week, the school was up and running in Jamunihai, though in the open. The community cleaned up the area in front of the anganwadi so that the kids could sit down to study. “It was such a welcome step to open a school here that we thought we should do our best to help run the school. We could never study, but we did not want the same fate for our children,” Uttam Gond, a villager said.

Though the village, under Tilgawan panchayat, is just 19km from Panna district headquarters, it was cut off from the main road for most parts of the year due to lack of proper approach road. This was also the reason why all children could not go to the Kodhantola school, which is about 3km away. The district administration got the approach road in shape by flattening the terrain.

“The children are quite interested in school activities now. Of the 47 kids enrolled, over 40 are regular on attendance. All are enrolled in class 1 and are taught basics, mainly through fun activities. We are also in the process of getting mid-day meal sanctioned for them,” Upadhayay said.

Collector Karmvir Sharma said that a temporary school has been opened in village mid-session after it was brought to his notice that several children there were out of school. He said that other facilities including a place to hold classes will be arranged as soon as possible.

“I used to graze goats for entire day. Now I come to school and learn ABCD and bada-chhota (Hindi alphabets). I want to study properly and get a job when a grow up,” Paramlal Adiwasi, a 11-year-old says. Other children like Gautam Gond, Deepak and Sukhram also express similar feelings.

For them, a door to a better future has suddenly opened in the form of the open school.