With online education impossible, Gadchiroli ZP teachers land at students’ homes

Nagpur: Online classes is an alien concept for children living in the 120-odd villages of a remote taluka in Naxalite-infested Gadchiroli district. Some villages in Bhamragarh taluka don’t even have electricity while many are outside the range of mobile networks. Yet, students of all 77 Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools here have started their studies at home, courtesy an army of dedicated teachers who fanned out across the inhospitable terrain to teach kids.
Teachers drove, walked and even hiked to reach some of the most remote areas where their students were residing.Once there, they divided students into ‘study groups’ that range from a couple of students to over a dozen, depending on the village’s student population.
Ashwini Sonawane, block education officer (Bhamragarh), said the eldest student heads the group. “This student ensures that the assignments given by teachers are done properly. Having a mixed age group ensures that the younger ones are guided in the right manner,” said Sonawane, who recently completed three years in the taluka. She’s the first education official in Maharashtra who requested for a posting in Bhamragarh, which otherwise is considered a ‘punishment posting’.
Vinit Padmawar, headmaster of Koyanguda ZP School, is one of the fortunate ones as his village is near the main road and boasts of decent facilities. “I run the study group in two shifts, each comprising two hours. In the morning session, we start with story telling followed by poems and multiplication tables. Evening is for revision,” said Padmawar. He added that students look forward to this activity as ‘they have nothing else to do’.
Teachers haven’t stopped at just academics. Sonawane suggested that life skills must also be taught and her team pitched in with ideas. In the coming week, activity based on life skill will focus on ‘cooperation’. “We asked all the students to assemble and paint pictures by using natural colours. They will make colour by using leaves, flowers and even mud,” said Sonawane.
By Friday afternoon, students at Padmawar’s school had finished drawing a ‘school’ on the wall of a friend’s house with natural colours.
When asked why ZP teachers are going beyond the call of duty, Sonawane said, “Just because schools are closed does not mean education must stop too.” She also felt that her team had to ensure that efforts of the state’s textbook publishing arm were honoured. “Balbharti published these books during the lockdown by overcoming multiple hurdles. These books then reached us much before the session started. If we had not gone forward with book distribution and studies, all their efforts would have gone down the drain,” said Sonawane.