Author: Ramesh Vinayak
Publication: India Today
Date: February 18, 2008
URL: http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/building-knowledge-blocks.html
Introduction: Education finds a way Haryana's
bhatta-shalas which look after more than 5,000 children
Against the backdrop of a smoke-billowing
chimney of a brick kiln and under a tin-roofed shed stuffed with rows of freshly-molded
bricks, a class is in session.
Nearly 50 children sit cross-legged attentively
practising numerals on their slates. It is an unusual setting but nine-year-old
Ashida isn't complaining as this is the only school she knows of.
In fact, this daughter of an Assamese migrant
beams with pride as she displays her neatly-written Hindi alphabets which
she picked up in a month. Until last year, she would have spent the first
half of the year working in brickkilns and the rest assisting her family in
chores back home. "I learn something new in school everyday," she
says coyly.
She speaks for about five thousand students
who attend 100-odd brick kiln schools across Jhajjar district, Haryana. Known
as bhatta-shalas, these schools are a boon for the wards of kiln workers,
who miss primary education due to their families' constant inter-state migration.
In 2006, 28-year-old additional deputy commissioner
Anil B. Joshi took the initiative of setting up 25 schools, covering 50-odd
brickkilns.
He began India's first kiln school by bringing
labourer's children into the loop of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan-a government
project for providing children, between the ages of six and 14, with primary
education.
As Jhajjar's soil is ideal for brick-making,
it has about 410 brickkilns. From December to July, more than 20,000 workers
make their way to the district and work in these kilns. While, their children-10,000
in Jhajjar alone-never make it to school and work for a pittance.
Pune-based NGO Dnyanprabodhini has trained
25 local youth to teach in bhatta-shalas. Each of these schools has a class
for students of first to fourth standards, along with a flexible curriculum
focusing on basic mathematics, science, languages and hygiene.
Also following the mid-day meal scheme, these
schools have reported higher attendance than their regular counterparts. In
May 2007, 70 per cent students did well in the final evaluation and received
certificates allowing them admission in regular schools. An ILO-funded tracking
system for the bhatta-shala project saw the enrollment of 800 students in
their native districts in seven states.
The state Government has now prescribed bhatta-shalas
as a model for other districts after such a success. As an evolving experiment
it is a learning experience for the authorities as well and is laying the
foundation for education, brick by brick.
