The bus ride to this school was insane– even more windy and treacherous than the one to Mussoorie, if that’s even possible. We cut through the surrounding mountains, switching back and forth around sharp corners, going further and further down, narrowly avoiding swerving buses and trucks. I was sitting on the edge seat of the bus, and every time I looked out the window I almost lost my stomach; it was a STRAIGHT drop down into the valley below, with zero guard rails or precautions keeping us from falling over the edge. I had to close my eyes for most of it…
Finally we made it to GEMS, a non profit k-8 school started by a Canadian native and anthropologist, Lori Chauhan. The kids came out to meet us right away, in their little blue plaid uniforms, and were SO friendly. They took our hands and led us right into the school. They showed us around all of their classrooms, proudly pointing out all of their art projects and science diagrams.
They then led us into the assembly room-turned lunch room-turned gym room. There they served us masala chai and biscuits, then performed a traditional Punjabi dance. Then they asked us all to join in…. Which was a bit of a disaster for us uncoordinated college students. But then they asked US to perform an American dance for them… We had NO idea what to perform, and we ended up doing the Cotton Eye Joe.. ’twas embarrassing. But they loved it! We then read them the children’s books that we brought, including many classics: Dr. Seuss ABC’s, The Little Engine That Could, and Curious George. 
They then took us down to the actual village, where we hung out for a few hours and they showed us around.
These kids had SO much spunk. They were all so friendly and wanted to hear all about college and America and where we were from. They asked us about our favorite music, what we liked to do for fun, what we were doing in school, why we were in India — all of it!
They also had a ton of attitude- it was adorable.
They LOVED taking selfies — the girl in the front of this photo is Renusha, a girl in year seven at GEMS. She was such a little spit-fire, she and I really bonded and we hung out the whole time it was great.
These were a few of the teachers at the school and our professor, with the government school in the background… read my piece below to find out more about the failing public school system in India.
We had an absolute blast with these kids and were SO worn out by the end of our day.
-SK
P.S. Below is a short piece about both GEMS and the public school systems in India, as well as the link to the GEMS website — definitely check it out:)
http://gems-school.org/about-gems/
The Sainji School: Private vs. Public Education in Rural India
“S-H-I-V-A-N-I,” Renusha spelled, “like the god Shiva, but with N-I at the end.” She couldn’t have been more matter of fact as she explained her best friend’s name. Shivani smiled shyly and nodded, still too timid to grab my hand the way Renusha had the moment we met. Together they guided me through the front door of their single-story school and into the first classroom. “This is the year one classroom,” Renusha pointed, as she brushed past the open doorframe. She pulled me into the next two rooms for years two and three. “My little brother studies here. Come on, Sister!” It went on like this from room to room, all located in the same narrow hallway, until we made it to the year seven class, where the girls shuffled me in and proudly pointed to their science diagrams taped up onto the glass walls.
Like any elementary classroom, there was a cursive alphabet displayed on the ceiling beams, a periodic table painted on the wall, and a large white board at the front of the class. But unlike any classroom I’ve visited, there were no bookshelves lining the walls, no pencil boxes filled with brand-new markers and colored pencils, no fancy calendars or colorful decorations. This classroom was the size of a college dorm room, and the kids who were just starting to hit a growth spurt could barely fit into the much-too-small desks that were crammed into six little rows. Renusha grabbed my hand and brought me outside again, leading me to the dining hall-turned assembly room-turned gym. In this small room that struggled to fit the 40 of us, the students served masala chai and performed a traditional Punjabi dance. The boom box was turned on as the students lined up in two rows, intersected arms, and moved with the beat, as us college students smiled and clapped along. Some girls wore thick wool trousers while others wore blue plaid skirts that swung as they twirled to the music, and the boys were all dressed in light blue button-downs and navy blue sweater vests. Afterwards, everyone sat down on the tiny benches to read the children’s books we had brought. Despite these books being much too young for their age-range, as most sixth-to-eighth graders aren’t reading The Little Engine that Could, Are You My Momma Llama, or Dr. Seuss’ ABCs, the students listened intently and paged through the books when we were done. Renusha held my hand the whole time, looking up occasionally to ask me about college or America, or what my favorite song was and if I would sing for her.
Renusha and Shivani are both students at Garhwal English Medium School (GEMS). Located in the small Himalayan village of Sainji, GEMS is a private, not-for-profit primary school started by Canadian native and anthropologist Lori Chauhan and her husband, Kunwar. After Lori had spent ten consecutive years coming to India to work with various NGOs, she met Kunwar, the Sainji village Pradhan (head man) in the town of Kolti where they had both been working to deliver winter shoes and jackets to the children. Finding a shared passion for bringing positive changes to village life, Lori and Kunwar married in June of 2008 and soon began the NGO Garhwal Organization for Uplifting the Needy (GOUN).
Lori and Kunwar decided to start GEMS as they could see firsthand the effects of the faulty education system in rural India, a crisis that the government has failed to solve over the past few decades. According to a UNESCO report, India’s 287 million illiterate adults make up 37% of the world’s total illiterate population, an ominous statistic for a country named the eighth fastest developing economy in the world. But despite the economic growth, India is starting to see the repercussions of an uneducated population: an ever-growing percentage of people in poverty, and a widening the gap between the have and have-not population.
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Before 1976, each of the 28 states of India had complete authority over their educational systems. When the 42nd constitutional amendment centralized power, the national government gained the authority to suggest educational policies and programs, but the state was still responsible for implementation and enforcement. Through the government’s attempt to universalize elementary education, various programs were put into effect at the end of the 20th century, and by 1997, 29.5 million children had enrolled in primary education, a dramatic increase from the 3.1 million students enrolled in 1950. By 2000, 94% of children in rural India had primary schools within one kilometer of their homes. Despite this accessibility, a 2007 study done by the Institute of Information Technology Management (IITM) showed low quality levels of education, with many students in years three and four still unable to write their own names. Most children in the US learn to write their names at ages three and four, not grades three and four. So had the children of Renusha’s family been in government school instead of GEMS, her 8-year-old brother in year 3 would most likely still not know how to write his own name. With literacy rates and education levels remaining stagnant, the government passed the Right to Education act (RTE) in 2009, enforcing free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14, with the goal of achieving 100% literacy rates across the country.
While the intentions of this act were positive, the execution has failed to reach its goal for a number of reasons. In a system riddled with corruption and deficient spending by the government, the failure of proper implementation and monitoring of these government schools has lead to an extreme learning crisis that has left millions of children all throughout India without legitimate education.
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In a hard-push effort to establish access to schools in rural areas, the government funded cheap and faulty establishments that lacked the infrastructure and resources needed to properly serve the students. The IITM study found that less than 5% of government schools had all nine facilities required in the RTE act, including textbooks, desks, proper building infrastructure, and even toilets. It was found that 30% of the schools had no bathroom facilities, a reason many girls stated for dropping out. Overcrowded classrooms, lack of learning materials, negligent teachers, and failed monitoring by the government all revealed the dismal planning and financing in the establishment of these schools in rural regions.
Along with poor infrastructure, teacher absenteeism continues to be one of the greatest problems within the government schools. In a 2000 study done by Economic and Political Weekly, in the state of West Bengal it was found that the typical student teacher ratio was 54:1, and that the quality of the teacher’s own training was typically below average. In 1999, only 65% of the teachers surveyed had obtained any type of formal training, despite the formation of the National Council of Teacher Education in 1973 that sought to set norms, guidelines, and qualifications for teacher development. Coupled with the political nature of many teaching appointments, the quality of instruction, when the teachers are present, is inadequate for child development.
As teacher’s unions gained strength throughout the country, they eventually won the right to not live in the villages where they taught, resulting in increased levels of commuting. This started an even higher trend of teacher absenteeism, and soon many teachers were finding other “profitable activities” to supplement their teaching jobs. Eventually, many teachers stopped coming to school altogether. “They don’t teach, they don’t come to school, they come late, they sleep in class,” were all common complaints among families in the West Bengal study. Of the students interviewed, 41% of them said there had been no one at the school teaching the day before the survey.
In the early 2000s, Kunwar advocated and succeeded in bringing a government school to Sainji, as the government had originally overlooked the small mountain village in it’s implementation of schools in rural India. He monitored the teachers, ensuring they showed up and that the children were receiving a good education. But once the teacher’s union won the right to not live in the villages, Kunwar found it nearly impossible to monitor the schools, leading to shorter class hours, decreased quality of education, and eventually a drop off in student attendance all together.
Renusha and Shivani brought me down to the village to see the Sainji government school myself. When they pointed to what I originally thought was a public shed in the middle of a dusty field, I was shocked. This tiny cement building was the size of a single classroom at GEMS, was overgrown with weeds and vines, had chipped paint, barred windows, and bolted doors. It looked completely abandoned. But I was even more shocked when I learned that this school was still in use, and that the eight or nine children of the Sainji village who do not attend GEMS still attend this government school. These children are usually those who aren’t able to pay the 200 rupee monthly tuition to attend GEMS (about $3.13 USD).
Private schools have significantly higher levels of quality education, but are only accessible to those families who can afford the tuition, which Lori explained is usually as expensive as 2,000 rupees per month. They offer better infrastructure, teaching quality, and are often English medium. English medium schools are vital for those children wanting to pursue a university education or high-skilled jobs, both of which are usually the only avenues to escape of the cycle of poverty. As the wealthier students are able to afford private school, the students who end up attending the government schools are the poorest of the poor and are left with the worst education. An IITM 2013 study shed light on the 26% gap in reading ability between government and private schools, and the fact that private schools are taking students away from government schools just emphasizes the government school’s inability to provide for their students. This disparity between schools often leads to increased class conflict, discrimination, and an ever-growing lower class unable to escape the patterns of illiteracy and lack of opportunity.
Various incentives are often established to draw more students to the government schools, but they are rarely implemented properly. One of which is a midday meal scheme, common among poor villages with families that struggle to feed their kids themselves. However, according to the West Bengal study most families agree that the meal scheme of distributing 3kg of uncooked rice per month had no impact on attendance, as the distribution often only occurred every four months and the rice was of substandard quality. There are also government programs subsidizing textbooks and uniforms, and when implemented correctly have proven to increase government school attendance. But often times corruption by both teachers and government administrators leads to uniforms and textbooks being sold for money, and the children never receive the benefits of these programs. Lori explained that in Sainji the children were promised bikes if they enrolled in the government school, an exciting prospect for kids in a tiny village. This incentive was completely unrelated to improving the quality of education for the children, but it still pulled 3 students away from GEMS and back into the government school. Lori says she has yet to see one of these promised bikes delivered to the children.
Lori and Kunwar could see the effects the deficient school system was having on both the children and the village as a whole, and were encouraged to start a school by many families in the area who understood the importance of quality education for their children. With no resources but an empty basement, the couple started with just eight children in their home, giving them the attention, time, and dedication a proper education requires. As more and more families heard about GEMS, they asked to send their kids as well. Soon the makeshift school outgrew Lori and Kunwar’s basement, and the government told them they had to move into a cow shed down the road. With a dirt and cow-pie covered floor, a leaky roof, and hole-filled walls, Lori feared that the school would quite literally fall apart. But recognizing the improving education of their children and the importance of the school’s continued growth, the fathers of the village came together to paint, plaster, and re-roof the shed. With the commitment of the village community behind the school, GEMS was able to continue growing and accepting more students.
Five years later and with some NGO funding, GEMS now operates out of a school building with 9 classrooms, a library, bathrooms, a kitchen, and its own school bus. It has more than 200 students and nine trained teachers instructing ten different subjects, including Hindi and English. GEMS also provides lunches and vitamins for their students, most of whom face inadequate meals at home. With external donations they are also able to provide the kids with not just school uniforms, but socks, shoes, underwear, and even raincoats for the monsoon season.
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As Lori gathered all of the students to say goodbye, she asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up. “Aunty, Aunty!” they cried, using their nickname for Lori, “I’m going to be a doctor!” one boy shouted over another, “I’m going to be an air pilot!” his classmate called out. “I’m going to be a teacher!” Shivani added. Renusha tugged at my arm and pulled me close, “I’m going to be a lawyer,” she told me proudly. Both of these girls, as well as all of the other students at GEMS, have had their dreams changed from when they first started school, as their futures are no longer confined to the unskilled jobs that village life offers. They now have not only a desire to attend primary school, but to go to university and beyond, with an enthusiasm for learning fed by the dedication to teaching that Lori and Kunwar have been able to provide.
eSKape 