This was one of our biggest mini-schools. 70 to 80 children from 1st to 8th std come here. Three of our teachers – Geetha, Sandhiya and Ramya teach here. Ramya comes just for the morning batch as she also teaches the evening batch at Nandhimangalam. Ramya was not there at Pondhavakkam when I went there to interview the teachers.
The setting of this mini-school under a grand old Peepul tree was always a favourite of mine. I wrote a report on this mini-school a few months back. But till I talked in detail with the teachers, I didn’t realise the problems they were facing in running this school.
Where all did this mini-school run?
We first had a mini-school next to our house. Later when we got the permission to run the mini-school from the school building, we moved there and stopped the mini-school at our house. This was a new group of students as the students near our house did not come all the way here. Then in March, the school HM wouldn’t allow us to continue in the school because of upcoming election. We moved the school here next to the temple under this tree. This year too, we have been running the mini-school under the tree.
Did your family support you in running the mini-school esp early on when running next to your house?
Family was fully supportive. We had no problems. We closed down the mini-school for a couple of weeks back in July 2020 because of Covid fear. But otherwise there wasn’t any Covid fear either in this area.
I see some young men hanging about the tree. Does this happen all the time?
This is a major problem Sir! Now there are only 3 or 4. Sometimes there will be as many as 8 or 10 young boys. They will deliberately disturb our class. They will call out / mock the older boys for studying. They will pass comments about the older girls. We have to wait after the mini-school and watch till the older girls return to their hamlet. When the younger children have to say something out aloud, they will shout and disrupt. It is a big headache and we have been managing somehow. We once talked to the father of the main boy behind this group and it stopped for just a couple of days. But then resumed again.
Has there been any other problems?
Even the boys’ problem is tolerable. The bigger problem is the lack of support from the community. The houses near the tree will not allow us to use the toilet. So we are reduced to having to use the fields. They wouldn’t even allow us to keep the chairs and tarpaulin sheet in their houses. Couple of children come from these houses. Even those houses do not allow them to keep these there!
Is it because of caste?
We are not sure. We are from similar caste as the people here. It is probably not because of our caste. May be it is because of the children come from this other hamlet (they pointed to a group of poorer looking houses on the other side of the tree). They are Dalits and we also had other problem. Some of the people who own these fields around the tree objected to the children walking through their fields to the tree!
Srinivasan who was our coordinator who was also with me pointed out that they are probably not storing the tarpaulin also because the lower caste people have sat on it!
Did the Corona adversely affect their families financially?
Both our families were affected very badly. Both our husbands lost in their businesses. The families were totally dependent on the salary from Asha.
What was different about the mini-school?
We did a lot of activities and experiments. One drawback was that the classes repeat only once a week. As we have only 3 hours with each batch, we do one subject a day and therefore the same subject repeats only after one week.
What will you take to the school from what you did in the mini-schools?
We will take these craft work and experiments to the schools. We would like Asha to continue the Whatsapp group for teachers to exchange ideas. We learnt a lot from that and it served a very useful purpose.
Will you miss the mini-school?
We will miss the children. But we will be happy that we do not have to deal with these kinds of problems.
About the Students
Quite a few of the students stayed back to talk to us. I couldn’t get the names of all the children. These were all students in the 6th and above classes.
Quite a few of the students studied in the PUPS Pondhavakkam school and are going to the govt high school in Pondhavakkam. Out of the children going to private schools, more than half of them have dropped out of their school. And as the private schools are demanding that they pay the fees for the last year also and because of financial problems at their homes, they are instead going to go to the government school. The remaining few children are continuing to go to their private schools.
Did you have any other education during these last year and a half?
Some of them were going to a tuition class by one Nadhiya miss. She helps them with the questions in the textbook. The children who are continuing with the private schools, have been having online classes for 1 or 2 hours.
How was the mini-school?
All Children: We enjoyed it very much. We enjoyed the General Knowledge sessions. We enjoyed the science experiments and craft activities. We wish these can continue in their school as well.
Some of the older girls also requested us to continue the mini-schools in the evenings.
What do you feel about going back to school?
Girls: We will miss the mini-school and are afraid of how things will be when we go back to school.
Boys: Excited about going back to school. We eagerly look forward to seeing our old friends.