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In Pachod village in Maharashtra, 12-year-old teachers are helping out-of-school kids attain basic literacy.
It is late evening and a class is in progress at a home in Pachod village. The students are 12-year-olds. And so is the teacher! But that doesn't mean it's not a serious class, or a dedicated teacher, or a keen bunch of students. Over the years, different methods have been attempted to meet the basic learning needs of children who have never been to school, have dropped out, or are working for a living. At Pachod in Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, the Institute of Health Management (IHMP) has adopted a Child-to-Child approach, engaging schoolgoing children to help non-schoolgoing children attain basic literacy. This Child-to-Child approach rewrites the concept of the teacher and reworks the relationship between ! teachers and pupils. In an earlier IHMP programme, Bal Shakti, schoolgoing children went to villages imparting simple but important information about basic health and hygiene. The interest and resourcefulness of the children made the programme quite effective. The Child-to-Child approach to basic literacy tries to tap this resourcefulness. The teacher, or balshikshak/balshikshika, is a child in middle school, about 12-14 years old. The teaching environment is the village community itself, most often the house of the balshikshak. The programme aims to teach children basic numerical skills and reading and writing in Marathi. The teaching is broken into modules, with activities for language-learning and mathematics. The similarity in the age and abilities of the teacher and the learner (given the fact that lack of intelligence is not the main reason why most of the learners are ou! t of school) makes the process more natural and contextual. It is also essential to keep each module simple, because both the teacher and the learner would already have done a full day's work -- the 'teacher' at school and the learner at her/his workplace. The Bal Shakti programme is active in 50 villages, through 143 centres. A total of 228 children (103 boys and 125 girls) work as teachers. There are 292 students (147 boys and 145 girls). There have been drop-outs both among the teachers and the learners (39 teachers and 53 learners), a problem that IHMP is trying to resolve. IHMP is now thinking of ways in which to give these young students a continuing education through the mainstream Zilla Parishad schools. The IHMP is provided technical support and training by the Centre for Learning Resources, Pune. Contact: Dr Ashok Dyalchand
Institute of Health Management Pachod
Pachod, Aurangabad District
Maharashtra 431 121, India
Tel: 91-2431-21382/21416
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