Shahpur – the first school we visit was closed – there were a bunch of kids milling around with a couple of couple of women supervising them. It turned out that the school was closed for some holiday – perhaps a lunar eclipse. It was not possible to see inside the buildings or to talk with any teachers. We did notice an electrical wire strung to one of the buildings, which was new since Rahul’s earlier visit. We were concerned that all government schools would be closed because of the holiday. (The previous day had also been a holiday with the schools closed – Rahul identified the holiday as “someone’s birthday”). Shahpur school was on the edge of the urban area.
The next school we went to was Nandpur – we were happy to discover that it was in session. We met with several teachers and the principal showed up just as we were leaving. The buildings were in very good shape, and had an interesting design with hexagonal shaped classrooms. Three classrooms were used, so there is the issue of split grade teaching. Electricity was in process of being installed, with electrical fixtures in place, but no line yet. Attendance was relatively low – I estimated about 50 kids were present for five grades.(Rahul said the enrollment was about 90). The head teacher seemed quite interested in using DSH. Nandpur schools was in a rural setting with a large surrounding school yard.
Salarganj. We arrived at Salarganj at lunch time when the children were having their midday meal. This was a good time to arrive since teachers were available and there was the feeling of significant activity. The school was well attended – although it had the same nominal enrollment as Nandpur, far more children were present (lunch time?). The principal was very interested in being involved with DSH and said to us “why did you choose our school? We aren’t any good”. (Rahul made the appropriate point that the project was to make the schools good). The school was in a small village, with a secondary school next door. Electrical fixtures had been installed, but the connection hasn’t been made yet. Of all the schools, this was the one I had the most positive feelings about.
Uttarhanna I and II – These two schools were adjacent , and similar in every way. Both were in the process of having electricity installed and did not have any teachers present. The facilities were comparable to the other schools. I don’t know why the two schools had been build so close to each other. These schools were in a rural/town area with most of the land built up – but some semi agricultural land.
Ganeshpur – We saw this school at the end of the day. The school was in good shape, and electricity was being installed. The principal gave us a tour of all buildings. Teachers were present for most of the classes. This appeared to be a very well run school. The principal said that 100 out of 120 students were in attendance. This was also a town school. Overall the results of the visit were good: the electricity situation was much better than anticipated – it is likely that all schools will have working electricity by July. Facilities looked adequate in all cases and there were classrooms that could be secured for storage of the TV/DVD set up. The three schools that were in session all appeared to be interested in using DSH and had an adequate number of teachers. One issue to be aware of is the presence of split grades – it is possible multiple grades will be watching the DSH videos. Teacher assignment was generally done by giving a teacher all classes for a grade, although it sounded like some places might specialize teachers by discipline.
The other three schools are worrying – maybe it was just luck – and if we had gone on a different day, these schools would be in session, and the others closed. The Shahpur school appeared to be in poorer condition than the others – it also has fewer teachers. We should revisit Shahpur and Uttarhauna if we have a chance.
Again, we started with Shahpur, which was open (and they seemed to be expecting us). The school was small, with a single teacher and two para-teachers. The basic teaching arrangement seemed to be 12, 3-4, and 5 (although the class we visited had 4 and 5 together). Attendance in the higher grades was low – only four students, all girls were present for grade 5. Explanations of festivals, and poor weather the previous evening were given. Electricity has recently been installed in the school (although not turned on yet). The principle seemed moderately interested in the DSH project.
We then went to the two Utterhanna schools, which turned out to be quite different (in spite of being adjacent with very similar buildings).
Utterhanna I – the principal explained that she had been ill the previous day (which didn’t really explain why the other teachers were absent). The discussion of DSH went well – they also were in the process of getting power (although there still is the detail of getting the connection activated – if that doesn’t happen soon, we will need to work on it.) We had a longer discussion with teachers at this school than at the others – an older teacher expressed pessimism about education and said that nothing would work in this environment. A younger teacher, however, was very positive about using DVDs for teaching and commented that it would help her develop her teaching. The discussion got on to other topics – the principal made some interesting comments on the overhead of the mid-day meal and how it took two hours of the day. When I was talking with students I did my standard “what is your name” routine. When I said “My name is Richard”, the next girl then just repeated what I said – “My name is Richard” – so showing the reflex for recitation. I asked the principal why the schools were so close together, but she didn’t know.
Utterhanna II. We walked the 100 yards to Utterhanna II. (Just to be clear Utterhanna I is the school on the left side of the road, and Utterhanna II is at the end of the road – next to the cow manure sculptures.) On arrival, teachers were sitting at a table, a student was leading a lesson to other students on the veranda, and children were in the two other classrooms, working on lessons or taking tests. The feeling was that this was staged for our benefit. The principal at this school seemed somewhat reluctant about using DSH, although did ask a number of questions. One of the para-teachers told us about radio programs for teaching English, but implied they weren’t very good. The principal said that two of her teachers were on extended leaves. (The subject of missing teachers came up at other schools – with issues such as teachers needing to leave for election duties.)
Dhawan School. The next school was Dhawan which was located in a village. The school was in good shape, and electricity was being installed. One of the teachers sent her child to StudyHall – the school that Urvashi runs! The discussion with Dhawan was very positive, and looks like a good school to work with.
Devaria. The final school was Devaria. This school was in much worse condition than the other seven we visited – only one classroom was usable. The principal said that the two other classrooms were unsafe – he would not use them for class, since he was worried they would collapse (and visual inspection supported his concerns). He said that the land next to the school had been allocated to the school – but it was “in dispute” – so it won’t be available for a long time. Finally, the electrical connection had been reallocated, so the school did not have a prospect of electrical power. Only 25 of the 109 kids registered were in attendance (other schools generally reported figures in the 70% range). We decided that it would not be feasible to run DSH at Devaria for multiple reasons – we need a school with multiple rooms and secure storage to begin with.
Dropping Devaria means that we are down to 11 schools in the study. We have permission to work with schools in the Chinhat development block. In picking the initial 12, Rahul excluded three schools that were in worse shape than Devaria, so there is no point in revisiting them. We will probably not try to replace the school (going out of district would require another round of approval).
After two days, we have visited eight of twelve possible schools. Seven of the schools have decent facilities and electricity on the way. This study will be focusing on “decent” government schools – there may be a large number of schools in the Devaria class, but it is not worth testing DSH in them at this stage (or at least not using the schools for evaluation of DSH). The response to the idea of DSH is positive – teachers do not appear to be threatened, but view it as an opportunity to improve their teaching skills.
In these brief visits, we observed many of the well documented aspects of government schools. There is an attempt to encourage attendance with midday meals and uniforms for girls. Teacher absenteeism is clearly a problem – although some of it is because the teachers have other responsibilities such as election duties. We didn’t seem much actual instruction going on (although may be partly to blame by interrupting the school day). The schools often had more girls than boys (although one negative interpretation of this is that parents were sending their sons to better private schools). The teachers in these schools were predominantly female – which is different from the state as the whole, which has a majority of male teachers.
We should be able to visit the remaining four schools tomorrow.
The school at Allunagar was in good shape, and the main classrooms were being painted so students were having their lessons on the veranda. Attendance was 103 students out of 212 enrolled. If the full complement of students showed up, it would have been packed. The teachers said attendance was usually around 60 to 70 percent. The explanation for the lower attendance was that exams had just finished. The concern the teachers expressed about DSH was safety of the equipment. They said that they didn’t even dare install fans on the veranda for fear of theft. Electricity had been installed in the school, and they even had an electrical outlet.
The Allunagar school was in a village in a farming and brick making area.
Roshanabad This school was in moderate condition with some hexagonal shaped rooms. Two teachers were present, along with two Shiksa Mitra. The Shiksa Mitra were teaching classes one and two while the other teachers were engaged in paper work. Attendance was low, which was attributed to the end of exams (why?). Another explanation was that this was the potato harvest time. The claim was that attendance was usually about 75 percent. The teachers commented that even though school started at 10, they had to allow children to arrive later after they finished their work at home. We had a long discussion with the teachers where they expressed a number of frustrations about teaching – such as the requirement for other duties such as election work and census taking. One teacher said: “Just let us teach the children”. Another complaint was the amount of time that the midday meal took. A teacher also made the quip that “all the rules are made in AC rooms”. The school was in the process of getting electricity. There was a poster on the wall describing the English Instruction radio programs (15 minutes long) – these are used in the school.
The teachers were interested in DSH, but again raised the security concern. The back room that was a candidate for storing the TV would not be suitable, since the window shutters were not secure. This school had a similar electrical situation to other – fixtures in and a connection in process.
Sarora This school was not on our list – Rahul had scratched it off earlier because the principal did not seem interested. I asked to stop at the school when we drove by to consider it as a possible replacement for Devaria. This school had four teachers plus one shiksa mitra (para teacher). However, the principal was apparently on semi permanent election duty, so was out of the picture. The classes were being conducted in front of the building and the classrooms were dingy and in poor condition. The teachers seemed disengaged. We discovered that this school was not in line to get electricity since the professor had not pushed the process. We decided against including this school in the study – it is clearly worse than the other 11 remaining schools (but better than Devaria).
Registration for the school is about 60 girls and 40 boys – but the attendance was about 30 girls and 5 boys. No explanation was available for the gender imbalance.
Purabgaon (East Village) Attendance was also low at this school – a couple teachers were present, and mentioned that another teacher was away on election duties. In one class a student was leading the other students through the abc’s. When we asked the kids to point out the letters by name a few could do this, but others couldn’t. The school had a nice layout with a large tree in the school yard. Standard story on electricity. The teachers had various questions about DSH.
Paschimgaon (West Village) Rahul liked this school a lot – it had a very nice school yard with a bunch of puppies running around . We arrived at lunch time, and very few people were around. The principle was friendly – he was an older man (I was surprised that almost all the principals were women, and about 75% of the teachers were women). We got a tour of the school and saw the new paintings that were going up in the classrooms. The days attendance showed that only 30 of the 120 students had shown up today – and most had left for lunch. The midday meal has not been served at the school for a month – it sounds like they have not been getting food deliveries. Apparently, when kids go home for lunch they don’t come back. I don’t know if the lack of the midday meal impacted attendance. Electricity is on its way – but not as far along as at other places.
One of the surprises was that electricity is going in to all of the schools (while they did not have electricity several months ago when Rahul had visited. Urvashi pointed out why this is happening now – elections in April – hooray for democracy. (This does mean that if the installation is not complete by April, it might stall out for a while). Electricity would make a tremendous difference to these schools – for fans and lights (the classrooms are very dark). Of course, the electricity must be on for it to be useful, and these areas undoubtedly have long power cuts.