How alternative schools are helping the poor access education

Twelve-year-old Ashish Kumar should be in school, but instead spends mornings playing on his father’s mobile phone at home.Ask Ashish, and he will tell you he wants to join the armed forces. But for five years, the boy has been waiting to be admitted to a proper school since the family moved to Noida from Garhsani in Agra. The pandemic, which wreaked havoc on their feeble finances, was a further setback.Ashish has been catching up on studies in the afternoons, on the premises of a shop a non-governmental organisation (NGO) has rented in Noida to educate out-of-school children like him.Across the National Capital Region (NCR), an economic centre that draws migrants in large numbers, unconventional classrooms like these — under trees, below flyovers, at community centres and parks — run by philanthropists, volunteers and NGOs are keeping the hopes alive of hundreds of children of eventually getting into the formal education system. medium104283167From not having proper documents to financial strain to getting pulled into jobs to support the family at early ages, the reasons these children don’t go to school vary.“My father has promised to put me in a proper school when we return to Agra,” says Ashish. For now, he is glad to have made friends at his new ‘school’.In 2018, when Rajeshwari Kopala, now 16, migrated from Odisha, she was studying in Class VI. In Noida, local schools agreed to admit her to Class IV, and not VII, citing her lack of proficiency in Hindi. Kopala’s mother tongue is Odia. Her parents put Rajeshwari in a ‘school’ run under a tree by another NGO. Abreast of basic Hindi, she has now joined a government primary school in Class IX.Fostering creativityThese alternative classrooms not only act as a ladder — or bridge in some cases — to mainstream education but also help channel creativity in children like Chandni Verma, the daughter of a daily wager. “Artwork materials such as colours, brushes and art papers are expensive. My parents try to support my dreams but financially, they are unable to,” she says.But with whatever resources she can muster, her passion for art burns bright. Chandni, who dreams of becoming an artist, won first prize in a poster competition on World AIDS Day in December last year.Social workers share that many children who come to their classes are extremely talented but due to the lack of access to education and strained financial circumstances of their families, most don’t get training or a platform to showcase it.Diwakar Gupta believes that if a child can’t find a way to come to school, then schools must go to them. After moving to Gurugram in 2007, it bothered Gupta to see so many kids living on the margins deprived of education. Gupta, who is from Jind, got a chair and a blackboard and placed them under a tree by a roadside at Sector 56 in Gurugram and put his heart and soul into teaching. medium104283155Today, some 200 children are taught music, Hindi, maths, among other subjects, and karate by seven teachers, in a morning batch from 10am to 1pm, and in afternoon lessons from 2pm to 5pm.Geetika Ariya, 24, a social worker at Challengers Group, a Noida-based NGO, teaches close to 40 children every day under trees in a corner of Sector 107.“It is a challenge to bring these kids, some of whom were found begging on streets, into the folds of education. Their first lesson is to sit in one place and concentrate. Gradually, they are introduced to alphabets, rhymes, days, months and numbers. We simultaneously try to get their documents in order so that they can at least get admission to government schools,” she explains.Inclement weather adds to the pains of teaching. “During heavy rain, or in scorching heat, it is difficult to sit here, especially for kids. We have also encountered snake attacks several times,” she adds.Reach the ‘unreached’In Nangli and Nithari, some NGOs are running ‘schools’ out of community halls besides training women in sewing and embroidery. “Walking in and out of classes with their mother surely motivates kids,” says Mala Bhandari, founder of Social and Development Research & Action Group (SADRAG), a non-profit based in Noida.She believes alternative education models can reach the “unreached”, and cites the example of Param Prakash, one of the students at her NGO. “Param started his journey at SADRAG when his father left them. He used to come in with his mother, who earned a living by sewing clothes at our NGO. Now Param is 20 and is pursuing BTech from a private college in Noida,” she says.For those children who can’t access even these unconventional classrooms, there are NGOs attempting to reach out. CHETNA — Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action — along with HCL Foundation and the police commissionerate in Noida, began an initiative to implement a tripod structure, where five mobile vans reach out to kids to offer them education. The police help the not-for-profit by arranging for places within the city, the foundation funds the infrastructure, and CHETNA provides education to children. medium104283131According to Sanjay Gupta, the NGO’s director, a total of 2,261 children have been contacted between January 2021 — when the Nanhe Parinde project was launched — and September this year. “Out of these, 428 out-of-school street children have successfully transitioned to the formal education system. Among them, 333 have been enrolled in regular schools, while 95 have been integrated into the open basic education [OBE] programme,” says Gupta.Encouragingly, such programmes have also helped bring down the number of juvenile crime cases, according to Noida assistant commissioner of police Rajneesh Verma.“Most of these children are found around Sector 18, 62 and adjacent places. The police also take initiatives to make Aadhaar cards of these children, reach out to the schools and ensure their admission,” he adds.Nomadic existenceSocial workers point out the challenges they face when families of these kids migrate elsewhere for work. “For example, we teach a kid for eight months, start his or her documentation process, but suddenly they disappear as their family migrates in search of jobs. We try to follow these kids, but it is not possible all the time,” says Yoginder Singh Negi.Negi has set up a ‘day school’ for children at Sector 81 in Noida inside a shop in a market. But the surroundings — there is no proper sanitation and an open drain runs in front of the shop — are far from ideal. “We have appealed to the Noida Authority several times to cover the drain, but no action has been taken,” he says. medium104283179Despite hassles, a few NGOs have turned their focus to imparting digital education to the kids. “We have started a computer learning session, at ₹1 per month, for underprivileged kids in Sector 22,” says Prince Sharma, founder of Challengers Group.Parents, meanwhile, say they can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel — their children getting educated promises a future better than their own. Mamta Rani, a domestic help, speaks for many when she says that mothers like her can also go to work “peacefully” without worrying about their wards.Yet, more than what they might end up studying, it is the efforts of good Samaritans that help instil confidence in these children and give them a chance to live a life of dignity.Two of Diwakar Gupta’s students are now enrolled in engineering courses. “Earlier, they would be going around the streets as ragpickers, or worse, begging. Now, they have a shot at a better life,” he says.