FARMERS’ ORGANISATION BACKED EDUCATION TRUST ANNOUNCES OPENING OF 500 RURAL PLAY-SCHOOLS OF HIGHEST STANDARDS WITH MASS TEACHING OF SPOKEN ENGLISH
Kolkata, January 2025: Backed by a farmers’ organization, Adhiti Education Trust, created to bring highest level of early childhood learning and activity based learning for primary, middle and secondary school students of rural areas coming from families of farmers and farmworkers, free-of-cost, held a press conference at the Kolkata Press Club today.
Farmer Leader Avik Saha, Managing Trustee of the Trust and all other trustees, namely Tejvinder Singh Chattha (Rural Business Entrepreneur), Abhijit Banerjee (Social Activist), Jayati Saha (Advocate of Calcutta High Court) and Tapas Kar (Social Activist) along with Ms. Pritha Ray, Academic Director of the Trust, were present.
Addressing the media, Avik Saha said: “The ideology behind the activities of the trust are inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s Gram Swaraj, where the father of the nation had envisaged villages would be developed as economic and social growth centres. We follow the credo of “Sangharsh and Nirman” going side by side. Unfortunately due to policy misdirection, lack of political will and grave shortcomings in implementation, although some schemes for bringing equality between villages and cities have been announced by several governments, no visible change is seen. Exodus from villages continues and village economy has collapsed into dole-driven livelihood. Particularly in the field of education, right from birth, children in villages are denied and deprived of early childhood learning, which every city child has easy access to. That is why we have opened play-schools schools named DhuloMati and activity centres named SlatePencil and ChokKhori. Already 50 such schools have been opened in Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum and North 24 Parganas. More than 1300 rural children now have access to play-schools and are getting the highest level of early childhood learning facilities. We plan to take this number to 500 by the end of 2025. Already, more than 100 local women have been trained to become teachers and are drawing respectable salaries and have become financially independent. The Activity Centres for students are designed to fill the gap in reading, writing, speaking and arithmetic skills that have been repeatedly reported about in education standard surveys. Teachers are being trained to speak English as a language. Pedagogy and Curriculum are being developed on an ongoing basis. Children of brickfield workers who have zero access to education are now being given their right to education. This is nothing short of an education revolution through which equality of access to education will emerge and all children of Bengal can build the future of Bengal together.”
Abhijit Banerjee said: “English is the great divider of India; those who can speak the language access the highest standards of life and livelihood, and those who cannot, toil below them. Most students of Government schools find themselves unable to compete with children educated in so-called English medium schools. I have personally taken charge of training the teachers to speak in English, and the teacher training course has been launched today itself. The first batch of 10 teachers have started their training, We are confident that by the end of the year, all teachers will be able to use basic spoken English in classes so that through hearing, children learn to speak English. We are very clear that we are not promoting English medium schools. Our schools are not English medium schools. We believe that learning through mother tongue is the best way of learning. However, knowing how to speak in English is a necessary skill in a diverse country like India. English can be a language of connect and there is no debate that English is also the language of higher education. From Government offices to Supreme Court, English is the language used. By knowing to speak English, the children will also be able to connect with half the world that speaks English. On the one hand, this is the great differentiating factor of our schools and on the other, this is the great equaliser. We know that teachers who can speak in English will pass it on to the students so that the great Indian divide of English speaking and Non-English-speaking students ends soon.”
Tejvinder Singh Chattha said: “As an entrepreneur who has to regularly do business with rural people, I have observed firsthand the great hopelessness that rural Bengal faces. Not a single teenager of a village dreams of staying in the village and making a respectable living in the village. Their aspiration is to move to the cities. Through this education initiative, we hope that village children will be at par with city children, and if economic activity in villages follows, which is sure to happen as we have seen in Tamil Nadu, then there will be no migration and exodus from villages. Multiple entrepreneurship and livelihood ideas will emerge and bloom in the villages itself. We are confident that citizens with privileges will come forward and donate generously for taking this initiative forward.”
Jayati Saha said: “Dhulomati, SlatePencil and ChokKhori are viable dreams provided we as a society have the courage to dream these dreams. This initiative is not just to educate but to bring equality between villages and cities. This initiative is now reaching out to children whose parents work in brickfields, and who neither get education in their own village or in the village where their parents work. They are nobody’s children so far as education is concerned. The first Brickfield school has been opened in 24 Pargana near Rajarhat and we will be reaching out to all brickfield owners in Bengal to implement the same model.”
Academic Director Pritha Roy said: “While spoken English will be a great differentiator, this initiative will also give better childhood to children. Every Dhulomati school has a toy and book lending library named Dhulomati Khelaghor. The response to this has been phenomenal and I must thank the hundreds of people who have generously donated books and toys. Along with our consultant, I am personally in charge of evolving the pedagogy based on which the curriculum is being developed. It will be of the highest standards. I don’t want to mention any names, but whatever is taught in reputed chain play schools today, is being taught at Dhulomati, but with locally sourced material and resources. The name DhuloMati itself indicates that rural children must learn with what is available around them.
Avik Saha concluded by saying that the initiatives of the trust are to supplement the initiatives of the Government through ICDS. The ongoing teacher training program will create village based expert teachers in an early childhood education. He added that every school is opened with the local community participating in full force and equal inputs. All physical infrastructure of schools are provided by the villagers free of cost, and without receiving any corresponding benefit. The concept and its execution till now shows that with minimal effort, a whole village can develop through development of its children and women – the children through access to high-quality education and the women through training, employment and financial independence.
