Part
of our project is to increase enrolment in our schools through working with the
local implementing partner, for us here in Rupandehi, the Dalit Welfare
Organisation. They lead activities like the enrolment campaign and arrange
bridge classes for students who have not been attending school with the aim of
a transition to the appropriate class after nine months. At 7am over the last
few days I’ve joined the walks through villages around three schools. Each has
been very different – students with tie and belt and orderly marching in one, a
more casual stroll with teachers gathering students as we went in the other
two. Taking the school to the village and talking close to home about what’s
going on in school seems to make a lot of sense. In a school close to the
Indian border the numbers in school could be doubled it appeared from four to
eight hundred students if enrolment and attendance was improved. In other locations
the drift to private schools appears to be significant. Teachers speak of
families enrolling their children in the first year of school in the government
system but immediately a private school provides bus travel – class 1 – parents
move them on.
In fact, due to my poor ICT skills probably (and maybe poor internet options in Bhairahawa) this post was written in April and is only now finding its way on-line ...... with luck there will be another post soon bringing a more up-to-date bulletin.
