PUNE: Nitin Wani, an assistant teacher at the civic
school
in Vishrantwadi, started ferrying a small group of children from the construction sites in his private vehicle to school. It soon led to a bus service for the children of construction workers.
The private bus now takes a round of all the nearby construction sites picking up out-of-school children, taking them to school and dropping them back home. While the civic body pays some of the bus charges, the remaining comes from the
teachers
’ pockets.
“In April-May 2016, all the teachers of our school surveyed the nearby areas. We found that there were many children in the age group of 6-14 not going to any school,” Wani said. They found that they had no school bus and parents were unwilling to send them to school.
The biggest reason, said teachers, was the labour contractor’s refusal to send them to school. “In most cases, the contractor who had got the
labourers
to work would pitch a tent and tell the parents to leave their children there while they were at work. One of the worker’s wives or older daughters would look after the children,” Wani said.
It took many visits by the teachers to convince the parents. Principal Nirmala Tapkir and the teachers hired a private bus to pick and drop the children. “The parents were wary. They wanted to know where we were taking the children, but soon began trusting us. From 3-4 kids, we now have 70 children who were previously out-of-school but are studying in our school,” Wani said.
The school then made a representation to PMC and got Rs 300 per student per month for their
transportation
expenses. “Operating the service costs around Rs 24,000 and we pay the shortfall from our pockets,” Wani added.
In the first round, the bus picks up
students
who were previously out-of-school and live far away. It travels to Dhanori, Lohegaon and nearby construction sites, sometimes on a 13-km trip.
The students have been put in age-appropriate classes. “Remedial classes are taken for an hour before school begins to improve their understanding and learning levels to the class they have been admitted to. This time, we have 35 students from construction sites in standard I,” Wani said.
The students are also given their
Unified District Information System for Education
(UDISE) number when they leave school.
“These children keep moving from one site to another and this leads to a highly unstable academic life. We give the UDISE number so that the next school can get all the information about the child from the SARAL website for primary education. It will help maintain continuity in education,” Wani said.
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