Badaun (Uttar Pradesh) [India], Sept. 5 : Taking note of the increase in school dropouts, the teachers of a primary school in Tikri in Kosaba block of Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district have come up with several initiatives to encourage the kids to pursue education.
The school, having 71 students and three teachers, has witnessed almost 80 percent attendance in the last two years.
The teachers here have also reached out to the parents and convinced them to send their kids to school while making them understand the importance of education.
A recent survey by non-profit social organisation CRY highlights that children do not attend school for months during the harvesting season.
In many instances, the children leave in between to give lunch to their parents working in the fields.
The teachers here are ensuring that they meet the parents twice a week. The teachers also organize extra classes for the weak students. The lack of interest is also one of the major reasons behind children dropping out of school. The teachers have found solutions to cater to this problem as well as they involve the students in a lot of fun-filled activities like races, yoga and painting.
They also share stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata and leave the story at an interesting point to keep the excitement of the children alive so that they are keen to attend school the next day to hear the complete story.
The teachers work hard to build trust with their students. They reach school on time, no matter what. They encourage healthy competition by serving mid day meal first to the students, who perform better in class.
"It is essential to incorporate innovative ideas in teaching so children are inspired and their interest is sustained in school.
It is only then they will attend regularly without dropping out, defying any hindrance - societal or physical.
We saw how children became more interested in studies and learning outcomes improved," says Veer Singh, the principal of Tikri Primary School.
"On one hand we worked on changing community mindset to send them to school in the first place, on the other hand we applied these approaches to ensure children stay in schools.
Teaching via motivational songs, yoga, painting, using interesting stories from Mahabharata and Ramayana are a few ways which we successfully used to engage our students," he adds.
Source: ANI
