RANCHI: Sapan Kumar, who had made headlines for transforming an entire village into a classroom, where walls served as blackboards on which students solved assignments given by teachers through loudspeakers, has now come up with another initiative to take education to homes. The blackboards on walls, earlier used during the pandemic, are now being used for adult education. As many as 138 elderly persons, who did not know how to even write their names, have been identified and are being taught by their own children and grandchildren under Kumar’s guidance.
The earlier initiative of Kumar, who is the principal of Dumarthar Utrkramit Madhya Vidyalaya in Dumka, was also lauded by PM Narendra Modi. With most children having no access to smartphones to take online classes, teachers of this tribal-dominated village were using walls converted into blackboards to keep classes going during the lockdown.
Hundreds of blackboards on the village walls were prepared using local and natural resources, such as mud, cow dung, ash and rice starch water. Kumar says he did not want the blackboards to go to waste after school reopened, and decided to use them for the purpose of adult education. “More than 300 blackboards are already there on the outer walls of Dumarthar village, which were lying idle.
So we are making use of them by making children teach the elderly at their homes,” says Kumar, adding that they are first taught how to write their names, followed by the names of their village, panchayat, police station and post office.
According to Kumar, classes for the elderly are conducted every Sunday for an hour at their doorsteps by their own children. The stationery and other required articles are provided by him. “Awareness towards education is important for the parents to make their kids educated. It is the largest weapon to eradicate poverty,” says Kumar.
Sonmuni Murmu, a class 5 student at Dumarthar Utkramit Madhya Vidyalaya, has been teaching her grandparents for the last few months. “I am teaching my grandparents how to write their names so that they don’t feel humiliated while giving their thumb impression to seek benefits of the welfare schemes,” she says.
Puja Tudu has already taught her grandfather how to write. “He never went to school,” she says. Her grandfather, Pawan Lal Murmu, laughs as he says he is finding it difficult to learn how to write the name of his village now.
“My granddaughter teaches me every Sunday,” says a proud Murmu, who is also the ward councillor of Dumarthar Village. His wife Mungli Marandi is also being taught by Puja. Another elderly villager, Ravi Manjhi, is overwhelmed by the initiative taken by Kumar. “It’s really a proud moment for all of us that our grandchildren are making us literate,” he says.