BHOPAL: For Dindori district of Madhya Pradesh, seeing a train chug down its terrains remains a distant dream – even seven decades after the country attained independence.
But the craving to see and board the elusive train has resulted in a spurt in student attendance at the secondary school in Khajari village in Amarpur development block – 12 km from Dindori district headquarters.
Concerned over poor attendance at the school which houses three classes – VI, VII and VIII – the staff of the school pooled their money to remodel the school into “Khajari junction” railway station and painted the six rooms there as engine and coaches of Education Express train – all to encourage students to study in train-shaped classes.
The initiative which cost the school staff around Rs 40,000 has resulted in a spurt in student attendance by 70% in just six to seven days of the school’s makeover in the dense forests on a hillock.
The makeover has seen entire school premises being renamed as Madhayamik Shala-Khajari Junction, while the head mistress’s room has been remodeled as the train engine which is powering the three train coach-shaped classrooms. Even the mid day meal room has been remodeled as the train’s pantry car dubbed as Annapurna Kaksh.
According to school’s headmistress Santosh Uike, the initiative has seen in student attendance in the just six to seven days only. “Out of the total 96 student strength in the three classes, the school was reporting maximum attendance of 50 odd students. But the remodelling of the school as a railway station and classes and other rooms as the engine and coaches of Education Express model train has increased the students attendance up to 87, which is just nine short of total students strength,” head master Santosh Uike told The New Indian Express.
The class teacher of Class VII Prakash Chandravasnhi recounted “Every alternate day, we had to travel to four to ten km in Khajari and other villages to motivate students to regularly come to school, but it hardly served the purpose. Subsequently, we decided to do something new and while surfing on the internet we spotted a similar initiative by a government school in Rajasthan. On the lines of that school we pooled our money to remodel the school as railway station parked with the train Education Express,” said Chandravanshi.
He added that not only students, but even their parents have started coming to school just to see the train, which they haven’t boarded as yet. “Enthused by this experiment, under which the ceiling of classrooms have been painted with science models and universe and solar system, parents of existing students are encouraging other village dwellers to get their wards enrolled in the train-cum-school,” claimed Chandravanshi.