GUWAHATI: A district magistrate (DM) in Arunachal Pradesh has come up with a unique idea of “school on bus.”
It has not only infused an element of fun but also solved space crunch in a government-run school in eastern Arunachal’s Lohit district. The classroom is in an old and abandoned bus and it has tables, chairs and stationeries.
The DM, Prince Dhawan, said he had hit upon the idea during a visit to a school where the children were taught in combined classes. He said another worrying factor was low attendance in the schools due to various reasons with one being the mundane and dull school environment.
“We thought that the multiple condemned buses lying defunct and rotting with the departments could be used for the purpose. We believed it would not only solve the problem of classroom on temporary basis but also infuse an element of fun and interactive learning in the school,” Dhawan told this newspaper.
But to make it a fun classroom, Dhawan said, some renovation was required and as such, the bus was painted with learning themes such as putting pictures of directions at that particular place, political map of India, national animal, parts of body and a route to reach the school from the district headquarters.
He said the initiative was part of a pilot project for which a school, GPS Thowang, was identified in a remote part of Wakro circle.
“The school was functioning as an island of excellence with a highly-motivated teacher-in-charge Ajitso Ama who was working hard without electricity and telephone connection. To motivate him and provide the school with an instant respite, the bus was placed at this school and later, the teacher and some volunteers painted it as well as the school building,” Dhawan said.
He said soon the children started staying in the school even after school hours and attendance improved to an extent that even children from nearby villages were migrating to this school.
“The children have taken a pledge to perform better to get more such buses in the future. They are elated as they got something which fused fun with learning in an innovative way,” the DM said.
He said the district administration would soon introduce more such schools in other areas to promote fun learning and improve the rate of attendance.