Nandgad is a tiny village nestling on the outskirts of the Dandeli forests, in Khanapur District, Karnataka. The closest big city is Belgaum, 37 kms (about an hour, and 15 mins drive) from Nandgad. Nandgad is a small village inhabited mainly by agricultural and landless laborers, who work in the nearby paddy fields or in brick making, a profession that has been growing in that region lately. Nandgad has one Kannada medium Municipal school which is run in a two room building in a very bad state of disrepair. The new Modern English medium school is the only English language school among Nandgad and the neighboring 10-15 villages. Poverty is rampant and the local literacy rate is very low. Women are practically illiterate and among men it is about 10%.
Nandgad has only one municipal school and none at the kindergarten level. The unimaginative methods of teaching in the local municipal school have caused a lot of drop-outs. This school was started by some local residents with the view to providing an alternative, to make learning more fun and imaginative. The school does this by emphasising extra-curricular activities. It is the only school in the village along the kindergarten lines. It operates mainly on contributions from the local benevolent people and offers a scheme to sponsor each child for the duration of the child's stay in the school. The school provides free education, uniforms and books to the children.
The main philosophy the school is run with is that education should be imaginative and fun and the children should learn confidence. Extra-curricular activities are emphasized and children are sent to other schools to participate in sports, other competitions and cultural events. I was told Imran (grade IV) is an accomplished debater and has won a few prizes for the school. A local donor donated the equipment for the school band and it is sorce of joy to the children. I was impressed with the way they played the welcome song for us. Their English teacher Jimmy is also their band teacher and sports master. The teachers seemed to be a dedicated lot. Three of them travel everyday from neighbouring villages and all of them have worked for no pay in the past when the school ran short of funds.
The New Modern English medium school was started in 1988 by Mr. Manjunath. Manjunath is an engineer by profession, born to an idealistic father whose dream was to promote education in the villages. Manjunath left his regular full time job and decided to start a school mainly to fulfill his father’s dream. He had visited Nandgad before and seen the state of the existing schools here. The attendance in the local municipal school was very low and the drop out rate high. He started the first batch with 10 children and a temple building. Since then the progress has been slow but steady. Right now there are 8 full time teachers and Manjunath who is the principal. All the teachers are certified by the Karnataka Education Board and attend the mandatory 3 week training given by the government every year. Even though the school is unaided, it is subject to all the mandated inspections by the government bodies.
The New Modern English Medium school currently has KG to standard IV with a total of approximately 245 students. A trained staff of 8 people is currently employed. The school follows a scheme of sponsoring each child completely until he (she) is ready to move on to high school. Extra curricular activities that the children are encouraged to participate in include music, dancing, singing and games. Children are sent to other schools to participate in inter-school sports and other meets. Recently the children won a number of prizes in one such sports meet. The overall principles emphasized in the school are helping children shed their shyness, develop social skills, so as to make them more capable and keen to face competition in higher schools.
In addition to education, the school also emphasizes the importance of health, nutrition, and cleanliness. The school employs an ayah whose job is to ensure the children come clean and tidy to school. In some cases this involves actually going to the homes of the children, bathing and dressing them and getting them to school. This has helped in developing a sense of pride and commitment to the school, among the children as well as the parents.
Currently the school is run out of an old, one room building but has recently received a donation of 2 acres of land from a local landowner and plans to start construction of a new building soon. Schemes to provide mid-day meals are also being worked out by the school board.
The school follows the regular Karnataka board syllabus. The school hours are the regular 9am to 5pm and the children currently use the playground of the municipal school for their sports activity. In fact they invited me for their January 26th flag hoisting ceremony and other function to be held in the playground, which I unfortunately could not attend. The school provides free books and uniforms to the children. Their current plans are to increase the classes by one every year so that the children do not have to leave. With enough funding they want to be able to provide education upto Xth and then start a vocational training center. The school charges a nominal fee of Rs. 70 per month which is not mandatory. Some of the parents are unable to pay even this amount. In the past when the school asked for fees, the parents stopped sending the children to school. So now the school has started a scheme of approaching local donors to sponsor a child for a year.
Asha has given the school $2500 this year. 50% of this amount will be placed in a fixed deposit account, and the interest used to sponsor more children. The rest will be used to pay the salaries of the teachers and buy books and uniforms for the children.