The Hindu : Come Monday, teachers go hunting for pupils

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 12, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Come Monday, teachers go hunting for pupils

By Sharat S.Srivatsa

MYSORE NOV. 11. Mondays have become dreadful for many children selling fruits and flowers to tourists atop Chamundi Hills. On these days, teachers of the local government school go in search of children who have either bunked classes or dropped out of school.

Even as the Education Department is trying to cut the dropout rate in schools, especially among those from the economically weaker sections of society, teachers in the Government High Primary School on Chamundi Hills are saddled with this peculiar problem.

The school records a sudden drop in attendance on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays with at least 30 per cent of students staying away from school. The problem gets aggravated during the month of ashada when a large number of devotees throng the temple; during this time at least half of the students skip classes.

Many times, students do not turn up to school for days together. The reason for such fluctuation in attendance has been directly attributed to the economy of the Chamundi Hills that is visited by thousands of people. Lured by the money they can make by selling fruits and flowers, the children skip school. Some children have even dropped out of school to start petty businesses around the temple.

With the Government announcing "Ba marali shalege," programme to attract children back to school, teachers have begun the task of looking for students who have either skipped classes or said good-bye to school education.

Supported by their classmates, the teachers, led by the head mistress, Manjula Bai, go round the temple in an effort to convince children to come back to school.

Though the effort has not brought any drastic change, it has made some difference to a few students. For those children who wanted to study but were pressured by family to drop out of school, this has come as a blessing.

A teacher of the school, Sidde Gowda, told The Hindu that parents of a majority of children who attended school atop Chamundi Hills were small-time businessmen, and that they encouraged their wards to drop out of schools to supplement their meagre income.

In some instances, parents did not even bother to find out the academic growth of their children. Even if the teachers tried to convince the parents against their children dropping out of school, they did not listen, he said.

As the programme began this morning with teachers scouting for their "missing" wards, one student was identified by his classmates. Even as the teachers were preparing to take him to school, his father intervened and said that he had to take his son to hospital. This did not surprise the teachers as such cases have become common for them.

Shivakumar, who sells flowers, was a student of the school. Even as the teachers tried to convince him to return to school, his father asked for the transfer certificate on the pretext that he would send his son to a school at Kadakola, near here.

Today, he is neither a student here nor at the school in Kadakola, and sells flowers to supplement his family income.

While novel measures such as "Samudayadatta shale" and "Ba marali shalege" are being introduced by the Government to resist the children's temptation to work or creating awareness among parents towards education, the purpose of the schemes are being defeated by the beneficiaries themselves.

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Come Monday, teachers go hunting for pupils