The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Where students don teachers’ role

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Saturday, Mar 22, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Where students don teachers’ role

D. Chandra Bhaskar Rao

With Vidya Volunteers missing for a major part of the year, students master the art of managing themselves

Photo: G. N. Rao

A student teaching at Tippapuram upper primary school. –

BHADRACHALAM: The boy is having a hard time focusing himself at school (not just as a student like many of his peers but) in the role of a teacher. He is the little precious teaching buddy sought after by both the students and teachers in the school. The teachers run the show with him by proxy. He makes the students learn the poem by heart and solves problems for them with ease.

The Mandal Parishad Upper Primary School at Tippapuram, (Bhadrachalam division) a village perched on the fringes of the Bastar, has some 85 students on the rolls. Besides a regular teacher who has been acting as the head master, four Vidya Volunteers have been appointed. But for a major part of the academic year, they go missing. The students have mastered the art of managing themselves.

G. Rama Rao, a Std. VII student, is all things for all people in the school. He fetches a pot full of water from well and cleans the premises. Dubba Janakamma, Padma, Soyam Ramesh and Nepa Rambabu are all Vidya Volunteers. The headmaster, M. Rama Rao also comes from Charla.

An autorickshaw that shuttles between the mandal head quarters village Charla and the forest villages brings the headmaster and teachers daily to the school. The school timings are decided more or less by the auto driver. If he is late to the village, so are the teachers.

As they are expected once in a blue moon, the student take on the role of teachers. Often the teachers inform in advance what lesson is to be taught for the day.

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