This village school has set benchmark

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Malout, June 11

It sounds strange but true. This is Government Primary School, Gobind Nagar branch at Sarawan Bodla village here, where students from not only this village but from some neighbouring villages such as Kabarwala, Bhagwanpura and even Malout town are enrolled. This school is located about eight km away from Malout town.

In 2007, when Surinder Singh joined here as a teacher, just 10 students were enrolled in the school. But now, the count has increased to 55. This is an ordinary school just like many others, which means no special teachers, no special infrastructure. Its location is odd and not even close to residential areas.

Still it’s attracting the students. Asked the reason behind this success journey, Surinder Singh, head teacher of the school, said, “Due to put in by me and my colleague Arjun Singh, people are sending their kids to our school. We teach them in simple ways and treat them like our own kids. We have even provided books to them, which match the standards of the CBSE. As a result, not just the kids from poor families, but some well to do farmers too have got their children enrolled here.”

He added, “We have given special uniforms to our students, which look like of any private school. The students of our school can compete with any student of a private school. As a result, about a dozen students of a private school in Malout town have also got admission here.”

Speaking further, he said, “Impressed from our success journey, an NRI has donated money to us, which we have used to build a classroom. Besides, some contribution has been made by local residents due to which the condition of the school building has improved.”

This school has got second position in the district in the recent assessment done under the ‘Parho Punjab Parhao Punjab’ project.

Some village residents said till about 2010, this school didn’t even have electricity connection, but now the teachers have got installed a reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment plant.

“The students enrolled in this school are good in English and general knowledge. Further, the teachers here are spending some money from their own pockets to raise its level. They even provide special mid-day meal to all students,” said some village residents. — TNS