Life at the other side of the track (Community Visit - Kanjurmarg-E)

Right after visiting that Basti, I decided to pen down this blog as those faces were still very vivid in front of my eyes.

Divya visited the private Primary school near her society early in the morning and interacted with the headmaster sir. She has been discussing and following up with the headmaster sir from last month about the quality of education, absenteeism and other problems. Most of the students in this school belonged to the near by jhuggi basti.

While discussing with Headmaster sir she came to know about few bright students from the slums who have stopped coming to school due to unknown reasons. Teacher mentioned that perhaps it was the tuition fee which was taking its toll on the families of these children.

She took down the details of these students and planned to reach and interact with the families of these students the same day.

Locality: Trolley Line, Rhuvira nagar, Guru Dutt chall

Volunteers: Divya, Krishna

Dwellers: immigrants from all parts of India

Child Labourers: none that we saw

Primary Schools availability: there are three primary schools near this locality.

a) Nav Jivan Private school: This is nearest private school (till 10^th standard) from the basti. Most of the children from the basti go to this school. However, by first glance the condition of this school did not look very good.

b) Municipality school – till 3^rd standard (140 students)

c) Municipality school – Till 7^th standard (strength not know)

Primary Issue: Following are the issues which came to our knowledge/ observed during the interaction with the children and families.

a) Unaffordable tuition fee (the nearest private school is charging Rs 1200/year tuition- in two installments)

b) Lack of motivation and guidance for these students by teachers as well as parents

c) Uneducated and indifferent parents

d) No Follow up by schools in case of absenteeism by students

Severity of the issue: After interacting with teachers, children and families we observed that there were few very bright children who were irregular to school merely due to lack of motivation and financial problem of the family.

We met with a girl name Shupriya Ashok who according to their teacher, is good in studies but she has been very irregular to school. While interacting with this child and her mother we realized it was both the indifferent parent and lack of motivation of child which were the reason behind the irregularity of this child.

Big Question:

a) Can municipality open or arrange a primary school till 10^th standard near this locality?

b) Can teacher be given training not only to teach but also to motivate the students?

c) How can these children be encouraged to study further once they complete their 10^th standard?

Other issues: Hygiene of the locality is the major concern. The milieu during the rainy season will be much dire.

(Further details in this blog will be added by Divya)

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