Leading children to school

Of all the manifestations of extreme poverty that assault children and youth, it is the denial of access to basic education that has the most far-reaching adverse consequences. It endangers the success and sustainability of efforts in other aspects of human development and therefore mortgages the future of nations

-James Grant [Address to the Education for all Summit, New Delhi 1994]

2007-2008:

Thirty year old Bainkunth Manjhi has never heard of James Grant, nor has he read Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. What he does understand is that the children from his community, known as the Musahar, must have access to basic education if they have to climb up the social ladder and that they are among those at the lowest rung.

Baikunth’s realisation of this basic truth has resulted in an upheaval of sorts in 48 Musahar neighbourhoods [each one known as a ‘tola’ in Bihar] of Naubatpur block of Patna district. Over the past one year, all 1057 boys and 894 girls in Naubatpur block between the ages of 6 and 14 from this Dalit community have been enrolled in school, thanks to the Bihar Education Project Council and UNICEF support to Baikunth’s efforts that inspired literate Musahar youth to become education volunteers in their own environs.

Five Pioneers: Baikunth in the middle

“Intellectuals have analysed and written so many reports on why the Musahars are outside the pale of society. There is a lot of noise and ‘Dalit human rights issues’ are focussed on. All this is good, but the fact remains that these intellectuals and activists have been carrying on for decades, and still average the Musahar boy and Musahar girl is left standing outside the classroom,” says Baikunth.

Baikunth Manjhi and his group of volunteers realised the importance of working with the government school system, and the Bihar Education Project Council, along with ‘Sankalp’ partners UNICEF and Pratham supported the initiative.

The basic reason why the Dalit children from the most impoverished sections shy away from school is that their parents do not insist on their enrolment. When a man and his wife are scrabbling out an existence at subsistence level, there is no energy left for the luxury of thinking beyond where the next meal will come from. It is an existence that is difficult for the middle class mind to comprehend: an existence devoid of a permanent shelter, two square meals, or even access to basic sanitation facilities.

Volunteers from the local Musahar community or from a neighbouring ‘Mushari’ undertook a house to house survey of the out of school children aged 6 to 14 years. Through numerous interactions with the children’s parents, and with a lot of persuasion, they brought the children to school. It was no one time exercise, but part of the daily routine: rounding up the children, taking them to school, and teaching them for a couple of hours.

For one year, these young people worked conscientiously without any sort of salary or honorarium.

“Sure, it was really tough,” admits Dularchand Manjhi, the ‘tola sevak’ for Jitu Chak primary school. “Our families accused us of being idle and useless. A man who would earn at least something in a factory or as a hired agricultural worker in Punjab, chose to stay at home and reach children to school for no salary. It is natural that our families called us ‘nikamma’ or ‘good-for-nothing’. But we didn’t lose hope.”

From October 2007, the ‘Tola Sevaks’ were integrated into the Sankalp Programme as part of the ‘innovative learning’ components, and they receive a monthly honorarium of Rs 2000 routed through the VSS: the School Education Committee at the local level.

The programme has been so successful that the Bihar Education Project Council has decided to replicate it in other districts as well.

2010 :This was the beginning of what has become the Utthan Programme -- and it's so diluted that it's lost its soul. This is part of a UNICEF report I did in May 2008.

Photos by Frank Krishner :

1- Baikunth Manjhi [centre] with volunteers at the site of their first meeting: Mukhtapur Mushari.

2- Volunteer or ‘Tola Sevak’ with children at ‘Navachar Kendra’ Purushottampur.