The sincere effort of a teacher is admired by villagers

Government Primary School, Saraitola (B)

Saraitola, Nagri Block, Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh

Purusottam Singh Thakur,
Azim Premji Foundation

www.azimpremjifoundation.org

“I met the parents personally to break the culture of silence prevailing among the students of our school. I started talking to them in Chhattisgarhi instead of Hindi,and it works” says Sanjay Kumar Patel, a teacher (Shiksha Karmee) of the Government Primary School, Saraitola (B).

Saraitola is a tribal forest village under Guhaan-nala gram panchayat in Nagri block of Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh state. The village is located about 4 km. away from the Dhamtari-Nagri road. There are around 60-64 households in the village.A poverty ridden village,each of its households has a BPL (Below Poverty Line) ration card.

While passing through this village, the school and its ambience attracted us and we went inside.

We reached there at around 4.30 pm, yet the school office was open. Sanjay Patel, who is a Shiksha Karmee, was busy with some registers. He welcomed us with a smile and greeted us with a warm handshake. When we asked about the students, he replied, “The parents have requested us to leave the students early as they were supposed to accompany parents for Gattasilly mandei mela” (TheMadei Mela is a popular fair in this tribal region which people celebrate after harvesting in each village, one after another).

The School with 37 students in total, includes 19 boys and 18 girls. Out of 37 students, 2 belong to Other Back ward Castes community and the rest belong to Scheduled Tribes.

There are three teachers, but one of them has been deputed to the newly established Thakur para school. So now,the school has only two teachers – Sanjay Patel and the Head Teacher, Hiraman Singh Netam. Head Master Hirman Netam is a local resident and from the tribal community as well, he too had left earlier for the mela, informed Mr. Patel.

Sanjay Patel said that when he joined in 2009, the condition of the students was not well, and they looked frightened. “When we asked them anything, they kept mum. But this is no more the situation here. Now they can face the people. I tried to build the relationship between the teachers and the students. I went to the villagers and met the parents of each student and also meet the students separately. I became familiar with them by speaking their language, Chhattisgarhi. Then, the villagers came closer to the school, they started supporting the school. They start attending SMC meetings, which they were not doing earlier. A bond has been created between the school and the villagers.

Earlier, parents would not allow their kids to go outside for study. He said the villagers very often said, “ Hum gond gawanr hain…” , meaning we are illiterate and ignorant tribes; we don’t know anything about the outside world.’Patel continues, “But we convinced them and motivated them that this is not true,that they can also do a great job. Then two students who were doing well in their studies got admitted to the hostel. Thus, the villagers extend their support to the school and teachers.”

“When I was alone, I stayed in the village, but now I’m staying with my family,some 5 km away from the village in a place called Dugli.”He says he doesn’t stay in the village because his two children are studying in high school and the village has no vegetable market and no shops.

When asked about his dream, he says, “My dream is the development of the students. I want to see them as good human beings.”

We were quite impressed with the school and the teacher Sanjay Patel. We bid farewell and went inside the village which was on our way ahead. When we saw a group of three villagers sitting outside a house and some kids playing nearby, we stopped there.

I asked one of the men, Ghasiram Netam, about the school(Netam is also the father of three school-going kids He said, “The school is doing well after Patel Sir has joined and we don’t want to leave him. He is not only guiding our students but is guiding as well.”

After a week, we visited the school again in the afternoon duringschool hours. We found students sitting in three classes. Head Teacher Hiraman Singh Netam was in the combined class of 2+3, Sanjay Patel was in another combined class, 4+5, and the Class 1students were found doing some classwork on mathematics on their own.

We also got the opportunity to interact with students and class 1students really surprised us by answering some general knowledge questions! They also answered what their future ambitions are.

Except for a few,students of classes 4 and 5 were in quisitive and academically knowledgeable. Despite being a remote tribal school, the students have aspirations of pursuing higher studies and becoming professionals likes engineers, doctors, teachers, etc.

Despite some challenges,this school demonstrates a very good relationship between the villagers and the school.The sincere efforts put in by the teacher are clearly visible. And it is our hope that the school will prove to be a change-maker in the future.