Vikramshila
School at Bigha
We run
an experimental Lab School in the village Bigha
located in the Barddhaman District of West Bengal. Bigha
has a population of around 6000 of which 40% lives below
the poverty line. In this village, we run a community education
programme under which a comprehensive package of educational
activities is offered to about 275 children. The programme
includes a pre-primary centre, an experimental primary centre,
a special coaching centre for upper primary students, environment
education programme, relevant
education programme and a transit course for
over-age students. A dedicated team of 10 Education Workers
takes turns to conduct all these activities. They also take
a watch dog role to ensure that the government schemes are
not misutilised - in the areas of health, agriculture or
education. Our centre has become an example of how a school
can become a nucleus for all types of developmental activities
in a village.
|
|
|
Bigha
: the backdrop
The government primary school catered to the upper castes
of society and till we started our school in 1995 the children
of minority community, scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes
were denied access to education.
The nearest primary health centre is far away and the local
sub centre was virtually non functional till our education
workers took this up as an issue.
Nearly70% houses have no toilet facilities and most of them
use the same pond water for bathing and drinking.
|
The
beginning of the school
Vikramshila
Education Resource Society has been working as a resource
organisation for the past ten years to develop a community
based education programme which is indigenous in nature
and contextually relevant. Our initial intervention strategy
emphasised pre primary education. The unprecedented success
of our pre school centres created a community demand for
a comparable model in primary education. Ten pilot projects
were initiated in West Bengal - one of them was kept directly
under our control as a Lab School and the remaining nine
with other organisations. All these centres created a ripple
in their areas of operation, catching the attention of panchayat
members, local school inspectors, district inspectors, educationists,
and other NGOs working in those areas.
|
In 1996,
the Ministry of Human Resource Development appointed us
as a lead agency to run one of their Experimental and Innovative
Programmes schemes and since then the 10 centres were funded
by the Ministry. As a lead agency we had two roles - the
first was to have our own Lab School and the second was
a capacity building role for our partner organisations through
sustained inputs in teacher training, monitoring and development
of teaching-learning materials.
|
|
Through
this we enabled them to emerge as local resource groups. Likewise,
the Lab School at Bigha emerged as a model of community education.
The first phase of our experiment has been successfully completed
and the Ministry of HRD has published a positive evaluation report.
Surround
Activities in our Lab School
1)
Environment Education
2) Health & Sanitation
3) Sports Activities
4) Agriculture
5) Cultural Activities
6) Education activities with Government Primary Schools
|
In
the Environment Education Programme two specially trained volunteers
guide the children in various kinds of activity so that they become
sensitised about environmental issues such as land use pattern
in the village, biodegradable and non biodegradable objects, cropping
practices, water source through practical activity.
We
have a School Health Programme which is integrated in nature which
makes the children aware of basic health norms.
Sports
activities are conducted for a selected group of 60 children who
are trained in football, athletics. Some of them have shown talent
and efforts are on to link them up with government programmes
so that they can take this up as a profession in future. We
have a support programme in sensible farming practises in our
centre. Through this our effort is :
-
to make the farmers aware about sustainable farming practices
- to ensure people's participation in soil testing and
other government schemes
- to make them aware about co-operative farming
- to introduce seed preservation and collection
- to give them innovative ideas on pisciculture.
|
Cultural
Activities are a great means of bringing people together and create
a team spirit particularly in these troubled times where mischievous
forces are trying to rip apart the social fabric. For this, we
have formed children's groups and youth groups. We organise cultural
events like songs, recitals, drama, wall magazines, etc. from
time to time.
Thus it is
apparent that the school acts as a hub to reach out to different
aspects of community life. The module of Community Education that
has evolved over here is also something which we would like to
uphold as a model to be replicated by education practitioners
from West Bengal as well as other states.
|
