Location
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. Most of the people in Nandgad are landless laborers and work in the nearby paddy fields or in brick making, which is another 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.

Some of the children and teachers posing outside the school building. The principal Mr. Manjunath (in blue trousers) is on the extreme left

I traveled to Nandgad with my family to visit this school on January 14th 1999. We traveled from Belgaum to Nandgad in a jeep and reached the school meandering through the narrow lanes of the village and amidst curious glances from the people. The first thing that strikes you as soon as you enter the village is the rampant poverty around. Most houses are old and run-down. There were quite a few children running around barefoot and playing in the hot sun and I wondered why are they were out on streets and not in school, until I was told it was Sankranti, a festival day and school was optional that day.

We reached the school building and I was very surprised to hear a band start playing a welcome tune. There was this very charming group of about 12 children playing the bugles, drums and flutes. The principal, Mr. Manjunath came forward and explained that since they had known we would be visiting, the children put up the band welcome. I was quite a bit embarrassed and told him not to bother with the formality and we would just walk around and talk to the children and teachers. The children went back into their classes and I walked around the building to see more.

The school has recently moved from a single room temple building, to an old house belonging to one of the teachers. It is a double storied house with three rooms on the ground floor and one room on the first. The room on the first floor acts as the principal’s office and the staff room. School records certificates and charts and books are all stored here. The children study on the lower floor. The house is one of the typical houses in this village where the layout seemed designed to keep sunlight out. All the rooms inside were partially dark with light coming in only from the front door or the back door. The middle room had a skylight and so was lit up in the center of the room. However none of this seemed to affect the spirit of the children and all of them were animatedly chatting away, until the teacher came in and quieted them down and started a science lesson.

The Staff room cum principal's office (with the skylight in the center)

The school currently has classes from KG to V, with about 200 children. A year ago this number was about 250 and it seems that the drop outs don't happen only in the municipal school. And even the 200 who are on the rolls, do not attend the school everyday. As per one of the teachers, the attendance on a typical day varies between 120-160. Many times the teachers themselves go and convince the parents to send their children to school. This year the school plans to do a full-fledged campaign to meet the parents and get the children back to school. However the spirit of the children here is something else again. They are almost fiercely proud of their uniforms and insisted on talking to me in English (even when I attempted to talk in Kannada and Marathi:-)). They had a small function in the honor of our visit. Some of the children sang a group song and the teachers spoke about their daily routines and extra-curricular activities. At the end, a little boy called Imran gave a very sweet vote of thanks. (In English!!)

History
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.

Philosophy
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 group of children who sang the song, along with their English teacher Jimmy (in white jacket) and other teachers and Principal

Education and Development Activities
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.

The school has managed to sustain itself so far from local donations and help received last year from Asha and a few individual donors in the US. The house they are using for the school currently belongs to one of the teachers, Mrs. Kamat, who had rented it out to someone else and has now given it to the school for free. They have used the donations from last year to buy benches and desks for the children and electric fans for the rooms. I was told the children and the parents were delighted with this. The school board wants to build a new school. They have been promised a plot of land from another local person but the land has been part of an ongoing family dispute and the school is considering going ahead with buying their own land and hence have requested funds from local donors as well as Asha.

Self Reliance Activities
The school has no resources right now to become self-reliant.The teachers have been using their ingenuity to get the children involved in some self sustaining activities. For eg. lately they have taken their school band and played in the local weddings and religious functions,  making as much as 200-300 Rs. for each day. The money thus raised was used to buy some sports equipment for the children.But this is not the kind of money that can sustain the running of the school. The board wants to get a 2 acre plot of land and use a small patch of it to grow vegetables. They hope to employ some of the older children who don't go to school or even the parents who don't have jobs. The vegetables can be easily sold in Belgaum city or even locally. However due to lack of funding, this activity hasn't progressed and the school is still completely dependent on donations for sustainance.

Action Plan
The primary task before the school board right now is to raise enough money for the everyday running of the school and for the plot of land for their school building. The current building cannot accomodate increase of another class. They have requested Asha for some of  the funding. Asha had sent them $2,500 last year, half of which they have deposited in the bank and used the other half for school expenses. A continued regular help from Asha for running the school will be very helpful until enough money can be raised for the plot of land and their plan of self-sustaining activities with the vegetable garden can be started.