Solapur school educates Beedi workers' kids for free

Four and half-year-old Md Saleem Altaf Shaikh, a preschool student of in Kumbhari village of Solapur district, recites a few poems, writes in Urdu language, recognises English alphabets and has learnt basic manners, all in less than a year.

Son of a daily wage beedi-worker, who used to sit at home or accompany his elder brother to school till last year, now dons a brand new uniform, shows off his books to grandmother Fatima Shaikh and promises her to become big in life. Saleem along with 44 other children of beedi-workers are the second batch students of this pre-school set-up by the eight teachers of Zilla Parishad Urdu primary school, Kumbhari.

In a country where teachers' absenteeism in rural schools has been a cause of major concern since decades, leading to closure of hundreds of government schools and privatization of school education sector over the years, the teachers of a state-run-school in Maharashtra have set an example by going beyond their call of duty to serve the society.

The brains behind the preschool are Sabiha Siddiqui, Khurshid Irkal, Raziya Sayed, Amira Peerzade, Khatun Gazi, Noorjahan Mulla (Principal), Nizamuddin Chitapure and Mahmud Nawaz. They are not only spending from their own pocket to support the kids below five but also encourage the illiterate parents to enrol their kids into the school.

These kids are not eligible to take admission in the government school which offers education to kids above five. Hence, they either wander in the village or accompany their elder siblings in the classrooms, thus hampering their education too. This prompted teachers to do something about it.

"We would often notice that a number of children, mostly as young three or four would accompany their elder siblings to school. They would sit with them, or play around the school courtyard, until they took admissions in Class 1," said Sabiha Siddiqui, one of the teachers and the brain behind the school.

The problem was common for all the teachers and hence they discussed it extensively and then came the idea to start a pre-school to address this issue. By January 2014, the first and still the only pre-primary Urdu medium school in Maharashtra was set-up. Enrolment reached to 18 last year and this year it touched 45.
"The school building has an extra room because of some mistake by the contractor which was being used as a small library. We converted this as preschool classroom," said Sabiha.

The group chalked out the entire syllabus, bought books and stationery from the markets for these kids, got uniforms, all from pooling money from own pocket.
Since they don't get enough time to teach these kids due to their own responsibilities, they have hired another young woman from the vicinity Yasmin Nada to teach them.

"We are able to pay her Rs1,500 a month. But she is happy and satisfied."
And this preschool is now supporting the main school as well. "Till two years back, enrolment in our school was declining just like other government schools. Now most kids who attend the pre-school want to study further and have taken admission in the main school," said Yasmin Nada.

The free education comes as a big support to the poor parents who are daily wage workers in the local cottage industry which is considered as second largest in Asia.

Do you know?

A recent World Bank study says that teacher absenteeism in rural schools in India is costing the government USD 1.5 billion annually, representing 60 per cent of the entire revenue collected from the education cess used to fund the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

Solapur and Beedi

The 15 factories in the district, which together roll out nearly 4 crore beedis each day — approximately 6.5 per cent of the country's total production. Beedi is the prime source of livelihood for nearly 125 years in Solapur district.