Author: Ramesh Vinayak
Publication: India Today
Date: June 20, 2005
Introduction: From teaching to cooking,
students at this college believe that self-help is the way forward
The English class is in full swing
and the attention that Amandeep Kaur commands as she addresses Class XI
students is admirable. Equally striking is the fact that she is one
among them. She is playing the additional role of a teacher by virtue of
being a topper.
The picture is the same everywhere
at the Baba Aya Singh Riarki College for Women. Named after the public-spirited
local who launched it in 1925, this unique institution, comprising
two schools and a college, at Tughalwala of Gurdaspur district in Punjab,
is driven by the self-help credo. As Principal Swaran Singh Virk says,
"It is the students themselves who run the affairs of the college."
The largely do-it-yourself system
is highly organised. Catering to the 4,000 students of the institution
is a 16-memher all-student committee that delegates duties to sub-committees
in a defined division of labour. "We learn the lessons of responsibility
in a natural way," says Sukhmeet Kaur, secretary of the committee,
adding that the chores include teaching, managing finances, admissions,
maintenance of the campus, library and hostel kitchen and the conduct of
examinations. These jobs are taken up by students on rotation so that they
are not burdensome.
The spin-offs of such a system are
many: it is cost-effective too. The college, which accepts neither government
grants nor private donations, has made higher education cheap. Two-thirds
of its students come from modest backgrounds but can afford the nominal
annual fee of Rs 800 (for day scholars) and Rs 5,000 (for boarders). There
is a complete waiver for 150 orphans here.
The institution has done well for
itself, recording a cent per cent pass with roughly 50 per cent of the
students securing a first division in Class X last year. Invariably, the
college tops in the examination in religious studies held by the Shiromani
Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) every year. A good 70 per cent of
the Rs 10 lakh SGPC scholarship thus earned helps bolster its finances.
Having launched a crusade against nakal (copying), nasha (drugs) and nangej
(obscenity), the college conducts exams without invigilators. Inspired,
Guru Nanak Dev University set up an exam centre at the college despite
it not being an affiliated institution. "The purpose is to hold it up as
an example for others," says R.S. Bawa, registrar and controller of examinations.
A role model, in more ways than one.
