Kolkata:
COVID-lockdown has hit the people from marginalized sections of the society. But in this period of darkness there is light of hope flickering in the corner.
One such ray of hope is getting emitted from in and around Kolkata where a group of university students from various parts of the metropolis have come together to form a group called Prithibir Pathshala to teach the children from slums of Kolkata and remote locations in various as they can’t afford online education.
Prithibir Pathshala roughly translates to school of the world. It is an initiative by a group of past and present students across universities in Kolkata — Calcutta University, Jadavpur University, Presidency University, Indian Statistical Institute among others.
“Due to the COVID problem, our school was shut down. My parents were worried about my education. Just when it seemed all over for us, suddenly we had dadas and didis (term for older brother and sister) coming over to our area. They started classes for us which has named Prithibir Pathshala. I am very happy now as I can study without any interruption,” 16-year-old Sanchita Mandol studying in class X, said.
Mandol added that she was very weak in Maths. But with the help of the “teachers of Prithibir Pathshala, her performance has improved drastically.
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| A cultural programme being organised by Prithibir Pathshala |
Mainak Panuak, who also studies in class X says that the teachers who run the classes at his slum area follow the school syllabus and have helped other students like him to not only understand their subjects better but also have nearly completed the portion.
“We are neither liking the online classes nor are we able to follow it. Moreover, the tuition classes are also closed due to lockdown. In this situation, these special classes are turning out to be a boon for students like us who are going to appear for Secondary and Higher Secondary exams. We have the same experience as we have in school. There is individual attention for each student and every subject gets equal attention,” Panuak says.
Apart from academics, the members of this pathsahla also conduct a lot of co-curricular activities that not only keeps the children engaged creatively, it also makes them feel relaxed.
“After March 22 last year when central government declared sudden lockdown, all economic activities stopped. Worst affected were the daily bread earners. We as students could not sit idle while people suffered. Hence, we decided to do something,” says Shambab Chaki, a founder-member of Prithibir Pathshala.
According to Chaki, the Public Distribution System (PDS) had completely failed and the poor were starving.
“So, we came up with the idea of community kitchen and with association of locals we set up these kitchens in Bakura, Purulia, Midnapur, Sundarbans and many other parts of the State,” Chaki informs.
In the course of setting up community kitchen for the marginalized people in West Bengal, these youngsters realized that education was another important area that was getting adversely affected. That’s when the idea of a community school also germinated. But it was easier said than done.
“In academic terms, we faced a challenge as we had to put offline classes on a hiatus for some time. Many of our students are unable to attend online classes, and thus we only held online classes for students in ninth and tenth standards,” one the teachers with Prithibir Pathshala, Gourab Masanta said.
“For younger classes, we thus used to go door to door twice or thrice a week to distribute worksheets for Bengali, English and Mathematics as an alternative to homework, so that there is a continuity in their learning and not a break,” Masanta said.
While this initiative is spread across 75 locations in the state, but according to another teacher Saikat Sit, “it is far from enough”.
“We must expand to many other places, which we can only do through community participation and help from the society at large. We would of course want that our students at the pathshala, especially those who have finished school, spread the idea in their areas and take up the initiative with the young ones living around them,” Sit informed.
Quote-unquote
“Just when it seemed all over for us, suddenly we had dadas and didis coming over to our area. They started classes for us.” - Sanchita Mandol, Class X.
“These special classes are turning out to be a boon for students like us who are going to appear for Secondary and Higher Secondary exams.” - Mainak Panuak, Class X
“We as students could not sit idle while people suffered. Hence, we decided to do something,” - Shambab Chaki, a founder-member of Prithibir Pathshala.
“We must expand to many other places, which we can only do through community participation and help from the society at large.” – Gourab Masanta, teacher
Author:
Prof. Shaswat Gupta Ray,
SoMC , Adamas University.
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