Practical learning is paving the road to success for govt school kids

Filled with enthusiasm, and uplifting the spirits of the children, the teachers of JHS Junpat Dadri School are the real heroes in the eyes of these children. Jointly supported by Indigo and SRF Foundation, the school has seen a rise in the regularity among the children because of the provision of various facilities and they feel at ease when they urge to learn something more; the school is well groomed in providing practical and theoretical learning.

^{_{The Arman Module- awareness towards social issues}}

The teacher’s department in the school have specially designed a special curriculum- Arman Module that contains topics and descriptions of activities relating to social issues. Every week, preferably on a Saturday, the teachers organise an indoor or outdoor activity in the school so that the students are educated on the controversial social issues in our societies in a more informative way for the students from classes one to eight.

The Sugam Karta a.k.a the teacher divides the students into groups where they are made to act in plays or recite slogans to raise awareness among the students along with their parents and other people in the village. ‘Nasha Mukti’ (drug addiction) and ‘Bal Vivah’ are popular plays among the students.


At the beginning, it was a challenge for the teachers to enroll the girls in the school because of the lack of awareness for education among girls.

"The teachers had great difficulty in persuading the villagers to send their girls to school. Many were reluctant, as according to them, the girls had to attend to the chores and duties of the house. However, over the years, many girls have taken admission in our school and we are very grateful for that," said Principal Geeta Pathak, JHS Junpat Dadri School.

Initially girl's enrollment was an issue

The ratio of boys and girls enrolled in the school is almost equal but the girls take long leaves because of some family problems. “On being asked about the reason behind leaves, they reply that their brothers hit them or bully them,” Neha Sharma, the Science teachers said.

She added that the girls studying in VII and VIII class didn’t know the difference between a good touch and a bad touch. “Boys used to bully girls all the time by slapping them on their heads and saying mean things. Girls didn’t identify this as a wrong deed. I made them realise that these are the actions to which one should retaliate,” Neha ma'am said.

After holding counselling classes and educating them about the same, the attitude of girls has completely changed. They are much more confident and vocal about how they feel. The enrollment of girls has increased especially after SRF’s contribution in the transformation of the school.



People think that children can pave the way to their future with the help of hard work of the teachers but in this case the teachers of this government school are being blamed for the failure of the student.

Mrs Geeta Pathak, principal of JHS Junat school shared her views on how the media is being biased towards the government teachers and how they feel about that criticism. “Negative baate zyada hoti hai and log zyadatar chatpati baato ko hi padte hai”, Principal said. Judgement is made in the very first place by the media.


If one school has made any mistake then the rest of the government schools are also like that. Geeta Pathak gave an example, “if the school starts at 8 sharp and one teacher is late by five minutes and that comes into the notice of the media then according to them all the teachers of that school or other government school comes late and take the students granted.”

Podcast on Bala Paintings by Ashish Singh


Multimedia story by Group 3, February 11, 2020
Text by Debomitra Das, Mahima Goyal and Rishika Singh
Photo Essay by Shreya Chakraborty
Podcast by Ashish Singh