Govt school offers second chance to 'creative' dropouts

Bareilly: Amidst rising dropout rate in government schools, primary school Mathurapur, under CB Ganj block, shows a silver lining on how to gain confidence of parents and students alike. The school is a first in the district where more than 40 'dropout' students re-enrolled after the staff took corrective measures and made learning easier and simplified.
Recently, the state government had called for measures such as 'Chalo School Abhiyaan' in a bid to push student numbers in government schools. PS Mathurapur serves as an example for others to tackle the dropout rate, says assistant block resource coordinator (ABRC) Anil Chaubey. "We want to promote innovative steps in the direction of education. PS Mathurapur showed a marked improvement in teaching practices which allowed parents to readmit their children," he said.
Disclosing the modus operandi adopted by the school, Anil Chaubey told TOI, "Our primary focus was on improving the quality of education in the school. For this, we began to keep a tab on the attendance of students along with the kind of teaching happening in classrooms. We ensured students take part in co-curricular activities and also stay focused in academics. Subsequently, we won the trust and confidence of both parents and students. We invited students to take readmission in our school after they had joined nearby private schools."
"We developed infrastructure, such as gardens having plantation in different shapes giving a realistic picture of triangles, square, rectangle and other shapes. This way we made mathematics relatively simpler and fun for the kids."
Anil Chaubey calls it a successful strategy. "While last year our strength rose to 172 students, this year we have 208 students, and we expect many more to join us."
Stating monotony as a reason afflicting a bad name on government schools, Chaubey, said, "There are six English medium schools under city area and has a population of 10,000. I have realized that it was the monotonous teaching practices which were affecting the strength of the schools and hence, leading to a high dropout rate."
Talking to TOI, Shakeel Babu, father of a Class III student, said, "Owing to the bad quality of education in our locality's government school, I got my child admitted in a private school. But having learned from a friend on how his child is making progress studying in a government school, and how it costs very less, I let my child take readmission in PS Mathurapur. Today, I take pride in that decision. I hope all government schools take note of this."
Shakeel is not the first to consider government schools as a better option than the private ones. Several other parents including Dharamveer Sahu quoted the same reasons behind readmission.