At a time when the enrolment of children in government schools is decreasing, a school at Kundaje in Puttur taluk has chalked out a novel scheme to retain the students — Rs 500 saving bond scheme.
Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat Lower Primary School at Kundaje in Ramakunja Gram Panchayat jurisdiction has introduced the scheme.
At present, the school has 35 children with eight kids in first standard, 12 in second, one kid in third, eight in fourth and six in fifth standard. There are three physically challenged children who are undergoing home-based education in the jurisdiction of the school.
The school has a headmaster, a guest teacher and another teacher hired by the School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC) to teach English under Gubbacchi English Speaking Class. As a result, the children from first to fifth standard sing English rhymes. They are being taught spoken English as well.
Headmaster Narayana P S and SDMC President Muthappa told DH, “The saving bond amount along with interest would be given to the students who continue their studies till fifth standard in the school. This would help them to purchase bag and stationeries while pursuing their further studies.”
Crusade against plastic
All the 35 students in the school have launched a crusade against the use of plastic bags and protection of environment from pollution.
They have been collecting the used plastics from their houses and also from their neighbourhood. They are storing it in their school in a gunny bag to be handed over to the Gram Panchayat for safe disposal.
Motivated by their SDMC president, the students no longer throw plastic wrappers and carry bags. The kids are well aware of the ill-effects of dumping of plastic.
Archana, a fifth standard student, said, “There is a need to check use of plastic for the benefit of future generation and protection of mother nature from pollution. In addition, the reduction in the use of plastic would help in maintaining cleanliness in our surroundings. We no longer burn plastic in our surroundings.”
In addition, the headmaster said the students get the collected plastic carry bags, wrappers on every Saturday to school. They have collected five gunny bags of plastic in just three weeks. This shows, the amount of plastic being used by the people daily. In fact, the school has announced a prize for those kids who get highest quantity of plastics by the end of academic year.
As the school has nearly over two acres of land, about 100 arecanut saplings have been planted on the vacant land in the vicinity during the year under MGNREGS.
