“Did you see this?” I asked my neighbour who is the Headmaster of a government school. I was referring to a video on the social media which showed a local MLA having caught some school children who had been sent by their teachers to buy eggs from the market.
“So what is wrong with that?” Headmaster sahib bristled when he saw the video. He went inside his house and came back with a primer. Leafing through it he stopped at a page and stabbing it with his finger said, “What is this?”
I took the primer in my hand. There was the letter ‘E’ on it and the picture of an egg, “Oh! It is E for Egg.”
“Now look at this…and this!” he thrust an Urdu and a Kashmiri primer at me both open on the pages which showed pictures of eggs with corresponding initial letters. I read both the alphabets and the words they represented, Anda in Urdu and Thool in Kashmiri, aloud.
“There you see! Where was the poor teacher wrong?” Headmaster sahib said triumphantly.
“Er…I don’t understand what you mean to say,” I couldn’t see what he was driving at.
“Now that says a lot about your education,” Headmaster sahib snorted, “You went to this expensive private school didn’t you? And people say that government schools don’t produce bright students! Why you don’t understand a simple thing like this! E for Egg is part of the school curriculum so the teacher was just doing his duty, imparting quality education to the students and within the syllabus too!”
“By sending them outside the school to buy eggs!” I protested.
“But of course! Education has to go beyond bookish knowledge. If you see the video carefully you will see that the school boy had been sent to buy three eggs. So there you are! The teacher must have told the student to get an egg, an Anda (Urdu for Egg) and a Thool (Kashmiri for Egg). Why the dedicated teacher was only checking the comprehension of the student! Whether he understood what these words, Egg in English, Anda in Urdu and Thool in Kashmiri meant! I say the brilliant teacher should be given an award for combining three subjects in one brilliant stroke!”
“Still sending students to buy stuff?” I persisted.
“Why can’t you understand?! Buying stuff from a shopkeeper would help the kid with his mathematics. How much money to be paid for one egg, how much for three eggs, how much the shopkeeper will pay back? All this involves multiplication, addition and subtraction! In fact this could help the kid to choose Commerce as his subject in later life. Or he might be inspired to go for an MBA and all this because a dedicated and brilliant teacher sent him to buy eggs.” Headmaster sahib said and then he continued, “You should someday check out a government school and see for yourself the efforts our teachers make towards imparting education to the students.”
Now as it happened the very next day I had to go to a far off village in connection with some work. As I neared my destination I had to take a detour because the main road was under repair. It was while moving through the interior of this remote area that my eyes fell upon a rusty board with the legend ‘Govt. Primary School’ outside a small building. I thought I might as well have a look. I stopped my car and went inside the mud-walled compound.
A middle aged gentleman was sitting in a chair in the compound, reading a newspaper. I introduced myself and asked him whether the building was a school. He nodded in the affirmative. “Could I have a look around?” I said.
“You are most welcome jenab,” he said with an ingratiating smile, “This is a remote area but we do our bit. It is nice of you to want to have a look around. In fact a few days back an NRK couple came in to see our school and made a generous contribution when they left.”
He called out to someone and a woman appeared at the door of the small building. “We have a visitor,” he said to her, “Do prepare a cup of tea.”
“That’s my wife,” he said to me.
“Oh does she too work here?”
“Yes like me she is also a teacher.”
“She’s on duty so please don’t bother with the tea.”
“What bother! She is working in the kitchen anyway.”
“Kitchen? Do you live here?”
He nodded, “This is my house and I have rented it to the department for the school.”
“Oh!” I said, “Are there any students here?” I could see none.
“Of course! They are busy with their assignments. Come let me show you around,” he got up and I followed him.
Instead of going into the building he took me to the backside of the building. There was an orchard there and I could see some boys plucking apples from the trees and some of them were packing them in boxes.
“These are our students!” he said, “They have studied ‘A’ for Apple in the theory class. This is the practicals,” he added with a smile.
A girl was rocking a crying baby in her lap. “That’s one of our brilliant students. She’s revising ‘B’ for baby,” he informed me.
Another girl was washing clothes under a tap in the garden. “That must be ‘C’ for clothes,” I said trying to be sarcastic.
“Yes and it is chemistry practicals too. You see we don’t have a laboratory yet so we sometimes conduct practical classes in the open. She’s studying the effect of a chemical, for soap is ultimately that only, on dirty clothes.”
“Must be your clothes?”
“Of course! From my own wardrobe and the soap comes out of my own pocket without a penny of government funds. As I said one tries to do one’s bit,” he said with unmistakeable pride.
“Indeed!” was all I could say. I refused the cup of tea with as much courtesy as I could muster and took leave of this venerable representative of our education system…
(Truth is mostly unpalatable…but truth cannot be ignored! Here we serve the truth, seasoned with salt and pepper and a dash of sauce (iness!). You can record your burps, belches and indigestion, if any, at snp_ajazbaba@yahoo.com)