How a govt school is getting great marks

Located in the suburbs of Bengaluru, a school has become highly sought after among low-income families. Sumedha Rao tells DH what it took to drive the change.

As told to Barkha Kumari

My domestic worker Yellamma was in the middle of chores when she asked me, “Madam, can you give me some money? I need to pay my children’s school fee.” I was annoyed, not because she wanted money but because she was not making use of the government’s welfare schemes. “A free government school is right here. Why do you want to send them to a private school?” I said. 

She shook her head and told me, “I went to this school and my life did not change. If I send my daughters there, they will also end up like me. Have you ever visited the school?” I hadn’t, even though it was just a five-minute drive from my villa. I live in the suburbs of Whitefield.

Later that week, I was standing at the gates of Government Higher Primary School Ramagondanahalli. The toilets were stinking. Garbage was dumped on the far end of the playground. The walls were peeling. A few children were sweeping the corridor and front porch with brooms for the morning assembly. Yellamma’s words felt like a tight slap. I returned home. I gave her the money she wanted to admit her girls to a low-cost private school. This was in 2004.

Cut to the present. This Ramagondanahalli school has 1,050 children studying between LKG and Class 10, and over 200 others are waiting for admission. Just five years ago, the enrolments were roughly 190. The first batch of Class 10 graduated this year. They posted an average score of 76.17 per cent, with 57 per cent their lowest. 

Due to the turnaround, families are moving their children from low-cost private schools to this government school. Domestic workers, rag pickers, plumbers and labourers are gravitating to Ramagondanahalli from slums 11 km away so that their children can study on this campus. Rents are going up in the area.

What is the backstory of this transformation? It is about volunteering and the power of collaboration. In 2019, a citizens’ group, an international school, and a social service organisation entered into a Public Philanthropic Partnership (PPP) with the Karnataka government to develop this school. I am its program manager.

Backstory 

The school wasn’t always in a state of neglect. It was the first school in Ramagondanahalli. It was started as a Kannada-medium school in a temple complex in 1918, offering classes till Class 7. It moved to its current location in 1958. It thrived until the IT revolution hit Bengaluru in the mid-1990s. Whitefield changed, so did local aspirations. Low-income residents started seeking English-medium private schools. As for blue-collar workers migrating from outside the state, from Nepal even, English schooling made more sense. That is how the school fell out of favour.

Today, you can say it is two schools rolled into one. It has government-appointed as well as private teachers. It imparts education from Class 1 to Class 10 in Kannada and runs another set of classes from LKG to 10 in English. We provide English classes for Kannada learners who would like to switch to English-medium education. The demand for English is high. Both Kannada and English learners collaborate on projects and events.

Involvement

Around 2007, a few expats and NRIs living in my villa complex started teaching English, arts, and life skills at the school. I followed suit in 2010. I was on a career break following the birth of my daughter. I started teaching English and also helping the women liaise with the school authorities as I knew Kannada. The school was happy to accommodate us because most classes were going without teachers. It had just five or six teachers then. 

Our group came to be known as Whitefield Ready. We grew in numbers. Our classes multiplied. We were spending our money, involving NGOs and citizen forums like Whitefield Rising, and channeling CSR funds for renovation. 

The classrooms had small windows, leaky walls and a damp smell. We repainted them and created small openings in the wall. As enrolments went up, we built six new classrooms and repurposed the older rooms as computer labs and for storing sports equipment. The garbage dumpyard was cleared to make way for half a dozen more rooms. 

My last stint was in the corporate world. I was a program manager. Bringing new projects, finding the right partners and enabling collaboration was my role. Volunteering is organic, heartfelt work and I was able to use my skills to structure what we were doing.

Many members of Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor lived in my villa complex and I brought this school to their attention. They restored girls’ toilets, installed an RO water facility, set up a computer lab, built a new high school block, enabled several events, and appointed janitors. Today they are our infrastructure partner in the PPP model. They also offer non-infrastructural support as and when it comes up.  

Our own children were going to Inventure Academy in Whitefield and we saw closely how it was supporting this school. It would send its students to conduct outreach programmes here and call these children over
to participate in football games and literature festivals. They came forward to be our education partner and we felt they were the right fit. As part of the PPP, they have appointed and trained 34 teachers to the Ramagondanahalli school at their cost. These are a mix of qualified teachers, professionals who have changed careers, and college
graduates. Teach For India has also placed its fellows in this school. The government staff teaches in the Kannada-medium section.

For all the flak citizens get for being apathetic, our experience has been different. An architect designed new classrooms for free. When we ran out of funds to build a section of walls, he arranged for perforated metal panels at throwaway prices. An artist volunteered to paint the new block with murals. A parent recently bought us a PVC turf mat to cover a corridor that was getting slushy in the rains. 

Counsellors provide pro bono services twice a week. A math expert gives over 12 hours of free coaching every week. Whitefield Ready is 56 members strong now and apart from teaching, we also raise funds for school uniforms, medical emergencies and higher education of these children.

Building culture

The year we came in, the attendance was thin. Some students would set out from home with their bags, loiter around on the streets until it was time for the school mid-day meal or extra-curricular activities, and head back soon after. Parents did not follow up much because they were caught up with their own lives, toiling from morning to evening to make
ends meet. These parents hadn’t studied beyond Class 8 and couldn’t help with lessons. Children’s learning abilities were also impacted by alcoholism, domestic violence and physical abuse at home. They stay in slums and settlements around construction sites. 

Could we make the school a place they would like to come to every day? We started filling our calendar with sports, chess, dance, theatre, art and craft, gardening, stitching, cooking, robotics and field trips. One school dropout got drawn to our campus only because we were giving football coaching. We, in fact, kickstart every academic year on a fun note — a week of activities and no teaching. We call it Discovery Run. 

We are not an alternative school. We teach all core subjects — math, science, history, and social studies. We also offer extra classes
because many children are behind the learning curve. Students present projects on Open Days and parents are invited. This has boosted parents’ interest in their schooling. They feel proud that their children are putting up science exhibitions, playing football and speaking English. To give back to the school, some daily-wage earning parents skip an entire day of work to paint the school walls along with their children — by choice.

The sense of ownership is even stronger in students. Classes 7 to 9 are leading several initiatives. The students of the Nutrition Committee ensure there is ample milk and protein powder in stock and students wash their hands before eating. They have new ideas for crowd management during lunchtime and want to run those past me, they told me recently. The Student Wellbeing Committee highlights disciplinary matters. The Safety Audit Committee recently flagged water stagnation and an open sump. The Library Committee is in the thick of our annual reading festival which concludes in December. During this period, students set up a mini library of books inside classrooms, set a reading target and write book reviews. While waiting for his turn to show his book review to his teacher, a Class 6 student told me, “Ma’am, I am reading two books every day.” 

The Media Committee will soon produce a newsletter and handle the school’s social media handles. These committees conduct elections to refresh their members. 

Question to minister

These children are turning out to be changemakers. Since the school’s annual budget is limited, I used to pay the electricity bill. At a school event last year, our head girl asked the education minister why government schools can’t get free electricity and water. In December, the Karnataka government passed an order to that effect for all government schools in the state. 

A year before that, our senior students did a survey of children who had dropped out of school since the pandemic. Some could not continue because of circumstances, some by choice. The latter baffled our students. For them, their school is a ‘fun place’. We can attest — most don’t want to go back home; they stay on till 5 pm. These students borrowed a shed from a landlord, stocked it with books and board games from our library, and taught a bridge course of alphabets, rhyming words, and counting to 56 children living in a slum. 

Challenges remain

Even after 14 years of engagement with the school, a lot of work remains. Some girls get late to school because they are cooking, cleaning the house or fetching water from tankers. Some girls can’t continue their education after Class 10 because parents think they have studied enough. Even boys harbour such gender biases. 

A few students need healing before schooling. How else do you teach a child whose mother went into depression after his father left them? Just recently, our counsellors worked on a case of repressed anger through games. They pretended to call children trapped in the ‘jail’. The latter had to answer what makes them happy to get out. On the same day, a theatre teacher was guiding senior students to put together a tiger dance (huli vesha) on caste realities, a topic they had suggested. We also run counselling sessions for parents, sensitising them to the perils of alcoholism and beating up kids. 

This is an emotional job.  In my first year of teaching, I didn’t go to school for a week because I was occupied with personal work. Some children spotted me near a bus stop. They gathered around me and asked, ‘Ma’am, are you okay?” I was taking the volunteering work casually. I was moved by their concern.

They also see us as people with solutions to all problems. The other day, a Class 5 girl said, ‘Ma’am, I also want to dance. Can you tell teacher (sic)?’. Please, please, she requested, as her ponytails bobbed from side to side. This was just one day before the Independence Day function. “How about on Children’s Day?” I suggested. She was delighted.

Not every solution works. Several years ago, a Class 7 girl told us she was uncomfortable in the company of one of her uncles. We met her mother. She was concerned and promised to keep the uncle away. The next day, the girl did not come to school. Her family migrated back to their village.

Surprise meeting

Does the success of the PPP model mean the government can’t do it alone? It is not that black and white. There are good government schools and there are government teachers who have gone beyond their duty to transform lives. However, in my limited experience, I have seen the  challenges government schools face. On the one hand, there is a shortage of teachers. On the other hand, the existing staff is saddled with documentation work and additional duties. This leaves little room for teachers to build a culture of learning. 

Coming from a target-chasing corporate background, working with the government initially felt slow. But once you build trust, things move fast. Earlier this week, we entered into an MoU with the education
department to replicate the PPP model in three other schools in  Bengaluru.

While the Government Higher Primary School in Ramagondanahalli has been the focus of Whitefield Ready, we also engage with four other schools in close proximity. We are tracking the progress of 35 students who moved between these schools. Some are now studying engineering, BCom and ophthalmology. One is a software engineer and another a retail manager. Two students have returned to their alma mater, to teach Kannada and physical education.

Three months ago, I went to a hospital at Kundalahalli for my daughter’s eye check-up. I was standing in the queue when a voice called out to me, ‘Ma’am, how are you?’. It was Mananda, our alumna. I have known
her since she was in Class 3, and also her mother, who was determined to give her a better life. We hadn’t caught up in a year. She said, “Thanks to you all for the support.” Seeing her in the doctor’s coat, happy and confident, filled my heart with satisfaction.

(As told to Barkha Kumari)

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