Village School

Hindrise Foundation is Planning for Village Schools in India

Compared with the schools in urban areas, village schools in India are witnessing the more detrimental conditions in terms of education and other facilities. The disheartening fact associated with our nation is that a notable Indian population resides in India's rural regions. After India's independence, education for one and all continues to remain a vain hope for children living in villages or rural areas throughout India. Since 65% of India's population stays in villages, the lack of qualitative education would emerge as a hindrance to the advancement and rise of the nation.  

Several organizations have conducted various surveys to determine the condition of education in village schools in India. After analysis, they conclude that the education system in India's rural areas is encountering pathetic circumstances. Observing the Annual Status of Education Report, we found that there is an increase in the number of students studying in village schools in India.

Nevertheless, there is a harsh truth that above 50 percent of the students studying in class 5th can't read the textbook of 2nd standard. They are not capable enough to solve even the simple numerical calculations of maths. Only 7% of rural students of Uttar Pradesh studying in the 3rd standard know how to read and comprehend the lessons covered in the books of class 2nd. However, the figures are better in Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. Unfortunately, even after making progress in several fields, India has many underprivileged children who don't even know how to read and write. Besides this, there are various other issues concerning the problems faced by village schools in India.

General Problems Faced by Village Schools in India

The general problems faced by village schools in India are-

Lack of Proper Infrastructure

Nowadays, many rural families have become aware of the value of educating their children. Thus, some of them have sprung sending their children to educational institutions while some are willing to send their children to the stupa of knowledge, i.e., school. However, the problem lies in the lack of proper infrastructure facilities in village schools. Around 45 to 50% of village schools sponsored by the government got blessed with electricity connections. However, in these schools, teachers are not accessible to various teaching aids, and even they have no idea how to use a computer. Lack of laboratories for teaching science in most schools in rural areas showcases the pathetic scenario in village schools in India.

The RTE Act of 2009 suggests that every school needs to look for providing a playground within the boundaries of a compound. However, the disheartening truth is that most village schools in India are deprived of playgrounds for children and boundary walls. Also, every school must maintain superior sanitation facilities. As a result of the scarcity of appropriate washrooms, there is an increase in the number of dropouts, especially a significant section of female students. Although some schools are extending toilet facilities, it seems as if they are not properly maintained. Therefore, the lack of electricity and water, lighting, properly-ventilated classrooms, study materials, furniture, and accessories related to teaching are liable for reduced attendance in the village schools in India.

Lack of Educational Facilities and Inadequate Facilities to Teachers

In most schools in rural areas or villages, the education system is underdeveloped and requires a lot of effort to come to an appropriate condition. Environmental conditions in the village schools in India are not suitable enough to meet students' demands and the requirements of other members of the schools as well. Lack of adequate facilities and amenities in village schools required to aid the attainment of education among students is creating problems for everyone. 

Necessary facilities like rooms for resting, potable drinking water, well-maintained furniture, learning materials required for teaching, colling as well as heating devices, etc. are not available in the schools of villages. Facilitating learning has become a matter of enormous concern in those schools that are located in village areas. Since there is a lack of those facilities that assist educators, students, and teachers encounter problems in executing teaching and learning techniques.

Most of the schools in rural regions are run as well as get sponsored by respective state governments. Appointment of ad hoc teachers takes place by government agencies. However, these teachers don't receive permanent posts by the government agencies. As compared to trained graduate teachers, these teachers receive inadequate compensation for the services that they provide. Since the teachers working on ad hoc are not getting a satisfactory feeling by performing their tasks and are not getting the desired salary, it's impossible to expect such ad hoc teachers to stay motivated for a more elongated period of time.

Then again, most of the teachers working on ad hoc are not ideally fit for the teaching job. They receive their training from private teacher training establishments all over India, which are unable to train them and upgrade their skills and knowledge that they must do. Teachers in village schools in India lack access to development in professional terms. Hence, we can't expect their motivation level to stay at the top all the time.

Although the School Development and Management Committees are pro-actively working, school management and teachers resist being accountable for their behavior. The cases of absenteeism have become very common. The Committees include members, along with parents from local rural areas. Nevertheless, they fail to influence others to make them exert extra efforts.

Teachers must impart knowledge in village schools and need to match pace with their counterparts in schools present in urban regions and private rural schools. Also, in the end, they must go for TET(Teachers' Eligibility Test) in the same way as others. Though several Indian states directly fill vacant posts by appointing teachers without any test of their skills only to meet the requirements. Consequently, the appointment of quality teachers in village schools seems to be next to impossible.

Another unfortunate thing happening in the schools of rural areas is that the state government is putting pressure on teachers to handle non-teaching roles as well. Especially during elections, this becomes more true. Sometimes, they need to visit in such remote areas where they have to perform their duties, but they deny doing so due to lack of transportation facilities. Hence, they decide to remain absent and face cuts in their pay, instead of undergoing such struggles.

Examining the Scenario in U.P. and Bihar

Uttar Pradesh

Annual Status of Education Report exhibited in 2018 suggests that nearly 47.2% of children acquiring knowledge in class 1 can neither recognize nor be capable of reading the letters in any language. This conclusion is a result of a survey that envelops 70 districts providing basic meaningful education to 82,470 children. Another harsh fact represented in the report is many children are capable enough to recognize alphabets but are unable to read words. In the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, reading skills of school going kids are not even satisfactory. In the same way, a major proportion of children studying in class 3 can't even recognize numbers. In most of the primary schools of Uttar Pradesh in village areas, children fail to understand the minor concepts of mathematics.

Although the Right to Education Act has initiated, the respective governments have yet to take some steps to bring improvement in the miserable scenario over the years. Nearly 20 lakh children or even more get dropped out of school per year, looking forward to joining the developing workforce in the state. Generally, the dropouts’ age falls in the range of 5-14 Years. Things become worse due to the improper teacher-student ratio, along with a lack of teaching materials and textbooks. However, in the last few years, the Yogi government has done an excellent job of improving healthcare and various sectors in Uttar Pradesh. Still, the education sector fell prey to negligence, and thus, there is no improvement in the education sector, especially in schools located in rural areas.

Since there are no basic facilities available in the premises of primary and secondary schools in village areas, many children sit on floors and study and even lack of toilets in such schools has created many issues in the lives of students studying in rural areas in Uttar Pradesh. Another matter of concern is that the school commences in April, but these students get their books in August-September.

As an organization working for village schools in India, Hindrise Foundation is endeavoring to assist in upgrading the quality of education by organizing workshops and spreading knowledge about the importance of robust infrastructure and qualified professionals and their role in the upliftment of education system.

Bihar

Although the growth of state Bihar has been phenomenal, the state has failed miserably in terms of eradicating illiteracy or providing elementary education for everyone. A few of the troubles coming in the path of consistent educational growth include lack of ample institutions in the nearest vicinity, inept infrastructure, degrading quality of teaching methodologies, and teachers, etc. Besides this, the child population is increasing rapidly. Since few organizations are coming forward to grab the responsibility of bringing education to the heaps, the government must look for increasing the accessibility of education in lower and upper primary village schools in India.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has endeavored to make a lot of changes in the entire scenario and has been successful up to a certain extent. However, as per the requirements, many changes are still required to be made in the educational structure in Bihar. All the required changes will become a possibility, but with the assistance of Hindrise Foundation, an NGO for social welfare in India. We are showing our prowess in the process of becoming the helping hand to the Bihar government and making them fulfill their objectives concerning the provision of meaningful education high in terms of quality to the backward section of society.

Bihar government can bring major changes in the following ways-

• By enhancing the number of schools in all the areas with an objective that children won't have to travel a lot for reaching the temple of knowledge
• By encouraging parents to send dropouts to school without thinking about the debacles of the past
• By bringing improvement in the literacy rate which has been through low phase since many decades
• By focussing on the improvement of education quality by bringing best teachers on board along with providing the requisite facilities
• By rendering quality faculty, strengthening infrastructure, and providing proper administrative facilities to secondary schools
• By giving importance to vocational education as well as vocational training to make students opt for the occupation as per their desire and capabilities and attain the necessary skills
• By appointing inspectors for monitoring the schools in village areas on a consistent basis and thereby stopping unethical practices from occurring
• By providing opportunities for acquiring higher education and building quality secondary schools too
• Keeping a track on the existing condition of infrastructure and drafting policies and upgrading the same for the betterment and ensuring that better infrastructure facilities should be provided to all the educational institutions
• By increasing the role of NGOs with an objective to provide benefits to the underprivileged children surviving against all the lows in their lives and making healthcare and educational facilities accessible to these children

In the Bihar budget for 2020-21 fiscal, the education department has received the highest allocation of around Rs. 35, 191 crores. 

The Hindrise Plan for Village Schools in India

At Hindrise Foundation, we have realized that initiating a school with even the fundamental facilities in village areas won't be an easy task at all. All sorts of barriers will be stopping your way. Regardless, we must look for making the progressive ride along with the local populace's assistance, support from local government agencies, and the people living in bigger and better societies. Government agencies should assist us with administrative responsibilities entailed in establishing a village school.

The people residing in specific rural areas would have to agree to send their children to school to obtain education and life values. Our team of Hindrise volunteers is striving to 'educate' parents about the requirements of their children to get an education. In turn, these children, when they grow up, will be capable enough to access better career possibilities and thereby support their native village to progress. This sort of awareness should aid rural families to send their children to school. Yet, they discriminate and give more preference to boys' education and keeping girls' futures at stake. Girls are observed as domestic laborers, who are responsible for helping their mothers with household chores and look after younger siblings.

Moreover, the usual excuse is that they should be trained to manage marital and familial responsibilities later on in life. Hindrise Social Welfare Organization believes that all children should get fair opportunities in life, regardless of gender. Consequently, the Hindrise Foundation team will look into creating this kind of consciousness too.

As for those of you who have had the great fate of receiving a good education and are settled in a thriving career or business, the best way that you can support us is by donating funds it would encourage if some of you decide to come forward to adopt children from the more backward segments of society. In this case, the term 'adopt' does not relate to making the child a part of your family. Adopting the responsibility is concerned with helping the child to complete his/her education via financial contributions. The amount may be huge or small; it doesn't matter. Every rupee matters! Even if the child endures to complete his/her primary education with your cooperation, Hindrise would appreciate it. It would be our consolidated contribution towards the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan program's accomplishment, which strives at education for all children b/w the age of 6 and 14.

Hindrise Social Welfare Foundation aims to begin this ambition-driven venture by establishing up a mini-school in a small village. The approach is to commence little and then move towards the fulfillment of bigger goals steadily. Therefore, the focus will not be on accumulating as many students as attainable from the word 'go'!

We plan to go out of our plan to systematize a robust infrastructure as far as possible. It comprises obtaining a proper building (even a small one will do) for at least a duo of classrooms or more, an electricity connection, provision of toilets, etc.

Our NGO for social welfare in India, Hindrise Foundation, is planning to hire teachers who have a heartfelt love for teaching and imparting knowledge, and they have the skills to change the fortune of village schools in India. They must look upon their duty as a vocation rather than as an insignificant profession. The children will get free books, notebooks, and stationery. Also, we just need to care about the fact that the games should be part of the curriculum.

Since travel and transport may turn out to be a problem, children in rural or village areas often come to school without satiating their hunger. We desire to help them begin every day with a nutritious feed. It should help them concentrate on their studies in a better way.