In a kind of weird twist to reality, Bangladesh can now boast of hundreds of Shantinekatan-style open-air schools. The difference is that the schools introduced by Rabindranath Tagore had an idyllic air about them; the poet had dreamt of an education system that blended with the freedom found in nature. Here the learners would not feel the rigours of any compulsion or strict discipline when taking lessons. Tagore wanted to make education an exercise filled with joy.
In our case, the students are literally thrown out into the open from their schools. All of a sudden, the institutions disappear for various reasons. They include assaults of storms, floods, river erosion and eviction by land grabbers.
In the country, hardly a village could be found that does not have a school holding its daily classes under a tree, in a courtyard or the verandah of a building. Apart from these, classes are held in ramshackle mud-built or tin-made rooms -- many without walls or even roofs. Even the cities, including the capital, have this mockery of schools. Of late, we have come to learn about at least two such open-air primary schools in the capital: one at Baily Road and the other in the Mirpur-2 area. Both the schools have reportedly fallen prey to occupation of their plots by local influential quarters.
The open-air schools dot almost every part of the country. Newspapers keep publishing their photographs, with TV cameras regularly capturing them along with reporting from the spot.
The topic should not be viewed lightly. It warrants serious thinking as the rundown schools stand as a satire on the present government's relentless efforts to completely overhaul the country's school-level education. The government has embarked on a grand plan to bring about a radical and qualitative change in the education sector, particularly at school level. Its focus on an overall uplift in the primary education accompanies generous logistic support to this sector, along with monetary boost. The fillips come in the form of bringing the non-government educational institutions under monthly pay order (MPO), leading to a significant hike in the teachers' salaries. The budgetary allocation to the education sector has also witnessed an impressive enhancement.
Let us go back to the open-air schools. They stand sharply in contrast to the government initiatives aimed at ushering in a new era in the grassroots education sector. On many occasions, we are made to believe that a school structure couldn't remain standing due to lack of funds for repairing the damages caused by a storm or a flooding. But it defies credulity. When the government pledges to provide schools with ICT (information and communications facility) facilities, the spectacle of students attending classes in the open in the absence of a structure appears to be sheer absurd. Given the plight of government schools, the sorry state of the non-government ones in the rural areas can be easily understood.
Apparently, most of the teachers at these schools have little qualms about the disruption of normal academic activities there. It matters little to them whether classes are being held on an abandoned land, or under a banyan tree. They are getting paid, nonetheless. But attending classes at an unusual place outside school leaves a damaging impact on the minds of students. It erodes their self-esteem; many feel hounded by an uncertain future and an incurable helplessness.
The school management committees and local education authorities can play a great role in alleviating the woes of students enrolled on these schools. Unfortunately, they are seldom seen to become active in freeing the students of this ignominy.
Open-air 'Toles', schools based on Sanskrit lessons, were an integral part of Bengal villages in the distant past. Through the passage of time, schools got accommodated in houses. A school eventually became the only permanent structure in a village. It served the purpose of a shelter during natural calamities. In Bangladesh coastal areas these days, large concrete-built schools turn into cyclone shelters during times of storms.
Against this backdrop, in which schools stand for our last resort, both literally and figuratively, the wearing-out of these cradles of future generations makes us sad. In short, dilapidated schools and students floating in the void keep making us prisoner of a bad dream. It is the state which can help us come out of its eerie spell.
shihabskr@ymail.com
