BENGALURU: In what can be called a community contribution, a government higher primary school at Ginivala village of Sorab taluk in Shivamogga district, now has 86 students compared to nine earlier, thanks to the efforts of villagers.
K P Rudregowda, a villager and director of DCC Bank in Shivamogga, said, "It is an 85-year-old school, and most of the villagers have studied at Ginivala Higher Primary Government School. Initially, the school strength and teachers were good, but parents were attracted towards admitting their children in English medium schools. Hence, the strength reduced from 150 to 90 and finally to nine. There were four teachers and in 2023, all of them were transferred at once."
When asked about the reason behind taking an initiative to restore the strength in the government school, he said, "We decided to start campaigning for school admissions when all the villagers gathered for Ugadi last year. Therefore, all the elders decided to work towards admitting more students to schools. That is when we held a meeting along with the school teacher, printed pamphlets, and went door-to-door, asking parents to send their kids to government school instead of private schools."
Rudregowda and other villagers went one step ahead and introduced an English medium school on the same campus, so that parents send their children to this school. He explained, "We had to stop private school vans from entering the village. Initially, parents rebelled, saying that they cannot get a transfer certificate for children who were already studying in an English medium private school. But we were able to convince them."
Ginivala villagers worked hard for six months to bring back kids to the school and it yielded fruitful results. He said, "There was only one teacher appointed by the government, we hired two more teachers and paid their salaries. The strength of the kids rose from 9 to 53 and now to 86 which is 50 kids for Higher Primary Government School and 33 kids for English medium school. There are three government appointed teachers and two teachers hired by us."
The villagers have arranged a van for transportation purposes for children. "The villagers contribute to a Rs 11,000 salary every month to the driver," he added.
