REPORT OF ASHA SIKSHAN
SANSTHAN,
BALLIA, UTHAR PRADESH,
INDIA
We (C.K. Suresh and Mrs. Gouri Suresh), parents
of Shyam Gouri Suresh,
went to visit ASHA Sikshan Sansthan,
a school run in the state of
Uthar Pradesh in India, on 2nd November
2004. This school is located
at Village Reoti, in District Ballia.
For this purpose, we started from
there we took Punjab Mail to Buxar, and stayed
with our friends there
overnight. The next day morning, along with two of our friends, we
proceeded by a TATA Sumo to Ballia. The roads
were horrible, to say
the least, in these parts of the country. During most parts of the
journey, the road was so full of potholes that it took more than 3
hours to cover a distance of a mere 90 kilometers. These are thus
highly undeveloped areas. We also observed that the people of the
village Reoti are mostly very poor. All efforts
to impart education to
the poor children of this area are definitely commendable.
While asking for directions to reach the school, we noticed that from
a few kilometers away from the exact location itself, the local people
had heard of the institution. We knew then and there that the school
does exist and is functioning! Soon we came across the name board of
Asha Sikshan Sansthan on the sidewalk. Some office bearers of the
school were waiting here for us. From here, the path was narrow,
winding and quite muddy. We proceeded in the Sumo slowly and with
difficulty and finally reached a small temple, where we got down. The
Sumo could not go any further. The men had caught up with us in the
meantime. They included Mr. Brajendra Tiwary, who runs the school and
his associates. All of us together walked to the school, which was a
little distance away. The place was very beautiful with a lot of
greenery. Fields stretched on one side. On another side, there were
many small mud huts, in which the families of some students lived, as
we came to know later. There was a vast expanse of water nearby.
Though it was stagnant when we saw it, the locals told us that during
the monsoons, water from here flowed into
River Sarayu.
The school is a shed, about 16 feet high in the center and with a
sloping corrugated iron sheet roof. Mr. Tiwary
told us that it is 52
feet long and 20 feet wide. When the school started in 2000, the
classes used to be held on the verandah of the temple (
2 boys. The present shed was made later when the number of students
increased. This was possible only because of the co-operation of six
persons living nearby, like Munimji. They gave
small plots of land,
and on this collective land, the shed was constructed. (Though Mr.
Tiwary said it is about 1/6th of an acre
in area, we are sure it is
only less than 1/10th of an acre.) Now there are 129 students
attending this school, Mr. Tiwary said, 72 of
them girls and the rest
57 boys. He said there were 115 students present on the day we visited
them.
Some children were wearing uniforms of some other schools while some
were without uniform. Many of the children are drop-outs from other
schools because they could not afford to pay the fees. One
girl
of Class 5 was especially introduced to us as a very good artist. The
pictures drawn by her were excellent. But she was the daughter of Mr.
Tiwary, as told to us by him. We were
also
shown 2 deaf and dumb students, about 6 years of age. The boy, his
teacher said, was very smart, and would write all the letters from A
to Z as soon as she wrote just `A' on the board. Similarly, he could
write the numbers 1 through 10 also. Mr. Tiwary
and the teacher
(incidentally his daughter) said they were at a loss how to teach
these disabled children further.
There were many benches and desks, all arranged in close parallel rows
inside the shed, all students facing the same direction. Blackboards
were only 2, one kept at the front and the other in the middle. The
students belonging to 8 different classes, from Lower Kindergarten to
Class 6, were all having classes simultaneously in this shed. There
were no partition walls. The individual classes could have been
demarcated by arranging the benches and desks in compartments, but
this was not done. The system followed on the day of our visit was
this: After writing something on the board, the teacher went to each
desk and made the students copy what was written and explained the
same to them. This was a tedious procedure, and if it was being
followed every day, it might be due to shortage of teachers.
As per Mr. Tiwary, teachers on regular salary are
only 3, while 2
teachers get part payment. 2 persons are being groomed for taking
classes and also for running the apiary. The total staff is thus 8. It
is thus clear that one teacher teaches students of 2 or more classes
at the same time. On being asked, some students corroborated this fact.
Students from a radius of about a kilometer and a half attend this
school. The timing is from
break. Students are all poor, mainly from the weaker sections of the
society, i.e. Scheduled Tribes like fishermen. Some students in the
higher classes, according to Mr. Tiwary, were
studying in other
schools but took admission here when it became difficult for their
parents to pay their fees. The syllabus followed is that by NCERT, a
Central Govt. agency that formulates the syllabus of Govt. schools all
over
will be provided by the Govt.
The students were seen to have textbooks and notebooks, though
everybody did not have all the required books. When we asked them
questions from their lessons, about 60% were able to answer to some
extent while 40 % could not answer. The students are not given
homework also regularly. But all this is natural considering their
financial background. It is most unlikely that they get time to study
at home as all must be helping their parents in different ways to try
to earn some extra money, if at all possible.
An attendance register is maintained, in which attendance of all
classes is marked. Mr. Tiwary said that
attendance is satisfactory. As
the tent erected on poles has no sidewalls, it will be really
difficult to hold classes on rainy days. The day we visited the school
was sunny and we saw the students sitting at the ends bearing the full
brunt of the sun. We suggest constructing some sort of temporary
sidewalls for the tent though a permanent structure is not advised at
this stage.
All students know a prayer, which the teachers said they sing daily.
We heard the students singing it too, though we later came to know
that this prayer is the same for all Govt. schools. We heard all
singing the national anthem also, though the tune was
very different!
One of the teachers, Rekha Tiwary,
was very smart. She showed us some
fabric painting and other art works she had done and told us she was
about to teach the students all this. We do not see much sense in
children from these low-income families learning such arts, where the
raw materials needed are quite costly. Ms. Rekha,
we came to know
later, is Mr. Tiwary's daughter. A son of his,
Mr. Om Prakash, is also
one of the staff of the school. 2 other relatives of Mr. Tiwary also
work in the school. The school thus gives employment to 4 persons from
his family. However, they are all working in different capacities for
the school. So this nepotism is not that harmful.
While on our way to the school, we saw Govt. schools running in open
air! Some students were wearing their uniform while some were not,
here also. Compared to these schools under the trees, Asha
Sikshan
Sansthan is definitely doing a good job.
Mr. Tiwary is working to
impart education to the underprivileged in such remote areas of one of
the most underdeveloped states of
However it will be appreciable if he determines the needs of the
school on a priority basis. For example, spending money to take these
economically poor children on tours is may not be money spent wisely.
Grants, from wherever they come, must be properly spent.
Mr. Tiwary's idea of starting an apiary is not
bad. He plans to have
20 boxes of bees. His trained men said that the yield of
honey/box/year ought to be about 40 kgs. They
believe that they can
sell honey at Rs.120/kg. The honey will be of the mixed type, from
flowers of mustard, litchi, sunflower etc. As honeybees bring about
more pollination that leads to increase in yield of up to 25%, farmers
usually come forward asking for beehives to be placed in their fields.
Mr. Tiwary said that an acquaintance of his has
60 boxes, from which
the income generated is one lakh rupees per
year. We thought that if
this were correct, Mr. Tiwary would need more
than the 20 boxes he
wants now, to meet all the expenses of the school, as he proposes to do.
After distributing the sweets that we had taken with us among the
children, we handed over a camera to Mr. Tiwary
for future school use.
Also, we took some photographs of the school building with students
and teachers as well as the surroundings. Lunch over, we returned to
Buxar in the same vehicle. The sun had
set by the time we reached
Buxar, traveling along the pothole
filled roads. We spent the second
night also at our friends' place and started for Mughasarai
the next
morning, on our way back to
Inspecting such a school was a good experience for us. ASHA, Austin is
certainly doing a commendable job in providing grants to such needy
schools in
the underprivileged here.
The overall suggestion that we would like to make is that Asha Sikshan
Sansthan is a school that deserves
financial aid as such a school is a
boon for the poor children of this backward area. However we doubt
that Mr. Tiwary's proposed tours would materialize
since the parents
as well as the children are living on the brink of poverty. Money can
be and must be utilized for much more urgent needs in such situations.
If grant is given to Mr. Tiwary for such
purposes, it is possible that
it will all be misappropriated.
It is therefore advisable to give Asha Sikshan Sansthan grants, based
on their real needs. What % of the amount asked may be given is left
to the discretion of the decision making authority of ASHA, Austin.
Now that Mr. Tiwary knows we have friends in
nearby Buxar, he can very
well guess that they may make surprise visits to his school any day.
The office bearers of ASHA, Austin can put in a word to him, too,
mentioning this. That will have some added effect.
Dated
Signed by:
1. C.K.Suresh
2. Mrs. Gouri Suresh