A lot has been done, great deal need to get done

As a child I used to frequent the MCD school at Pankha road as my mother used to teach there. If you asked me to describe an MCD school then it would have been:

“poor infrastructure, teachers with low sense of responsibility often seen chit chatting in the staff room, skinny undernourished children in torn uniform and slippers running amok..”

I used to blame the teachers. Failing to see the bigger picture. Looking back, I think I was unduly harsh on them, blaming them for the poor state of affair.

Now that my mom is Headmistress of one of these schools, she much better placed to explain why these MCD are not able to compete with the private schools .

Firstly the children these schools cater to are the poorest of the poor in the city. The one my mom heads its located at the fringes of Tihar Village. The parents of most of these children work as manual labour, sweepers, rickshaw pullers many are beggars, some petty thieves. Most of their parents don’t care if their child studies or not, many of them send them to school only because they don’t have anyone to take care of them during the day. Its anyone’s guess what would happen to these children if the government wasn’t operating these school.

So surely we need these schools, but what about the “poor infrastructure, teachers with low sense of responsibility often seen chit chatting in the staff room, skinny undernourished children in....”

I was wrong to describe the teachers as “with low sense of responsibility”. They have so much administrative work thrust upon them, preparing pay slips, election duties to name a few, that it becomes almost a compulsion for them spend more hours doing that, rather than teaching the students. Though there are always bad grapes, it’s not that all the teachers don’t care about the children, or don’t feel responsible for them. I’ve seen my mom jump in joy when one of her students wins some painting competition, cry on her inability to help some of them. Most of all she refers to them as “my children”.

I do appreciate the governments introduction of the mid day meal scheme, as the students are much healthier than they used to be, I thank them for giving out free uniform, as they are much better dressed these days, I thank them for introducing the ladli scheme, as more parents enroll their daughter into the school. I thank them for work they are doing to improve the infrastructure.

Though much has been done. Every morning when I drive my mom to her school, looking at those children…. I despise myself for criticizing others …..I despise myself not doing anything, when there is a lot which can be done.