For a start build buildings for schools

Darbhanga (Bihar), June 17 (ANI): Things are looking up in Bihar, a state which was in slumber for decades. Now this state, which comprises a region with glorious historical traditions, is shaking off its shackles, awakening from its slumber and people are eager for change.

In the field of education, there has been a perceptible change with the momentum picking up. Massive activities have been undertaken: building infrastructure, filling up posts of teachers on a war footing, populist schemes like the 'Mukhya Mantri Cycle Yojana' which entailed the distribution of bicycles to girl students; books being provided. In a sense pulling out all the stops to make education reach every school going child in a resurgent Bihar.

But the winds of change seem to stall, even stop in areas within Bihar, which have been beset with problems, which are even today untouched by the magic of development, specifically by the massive educational thrust that Bihar is witnessing today.

Mansara Mushar is a tiny village about 75 km from Darbhanga district headquarters in eastern Bihar, on the banks of the river Kamla, chronically flood-prone, a region characterised by its backwardness, its lack of development. It lies in the Gaura Bairam block, in Kiratpur panchayat and represents a forgotten area of Bihar.

What else would you call an area where there is no government primary school? The first building block of education, the first step for children of Bihar's hinterland to climb out of illiteracy and backwardness simply does not exist!

There is a government teacher but the lack of premises puts even earnest efforts of the teacher and the taught asunder. Students here understand very well, just how crucial education is, what avenues it could open up for their lives and shape their future. Yet they are rootless, adrift and gather sometimes in one place, then another to learn from their teacher who is also helpless in the face of this yawning gap in basic infrastructure.

For children who are disabled, it is a double whammy. Within the compromised situation of education in Kiratpur, who really cares for them? Sudhir Kumar, a student of Class 1 is disabled and when asked what his dream was says candidly that he is eager to study and then to help all those children like him, to help them to get a basic education.

Yes, here in Kiratpur, in eastern Bihar, it is still a sorry tale of young lives caught in the inextricable web of poverty, backwardness and for children like Sudhir, compounded by disability.

It is amidst this hopelessness and neglect that a new initiative began essentially a move by an organization, powered by an individual who was moved by this disconcerting picture of village children moving around the area like educational nomads.

Narayan Jee Chowdhary, who heads an NGO, Mithila Gram Vikas Parishad (MGVP), working on relief and rehabilitation of flood-affected communities, took the lead in establishing a school where none existed from the government's side. His able lieutenant, Vidyanand actually took on the mantle of teaching the children in a small school structure that the villagers refer to as Mansara Mushar Primary School.

It is clear that this village produced its own wave of education, the intense desire to enable its young to attend school. The official wave to spur educational reform came later. Indeed Mansara Mushar did not take its cue from the government's efforts to boost education. Its impetus came from within, the lives of the people, the parents, teachers, children and people like Narayan Jee who weaved it together and gave it shape.

It was in 2009, this backward area, its people comprising of mostly landless labourers experienced the first stirrings of an educational reform Parents of children concerned about their future saw in Narayanjee, a sincerity of purpose, a commitment to make education available for their children.

There was a groundswell of support for the construction of the school, on land which the community had access to and in which the entire village joined in. People came together spontaneously for lifting and laying bricks for the school building, for establishing it bit by bit.

Already dreams are in the pipeline, dreams in the eyes and hearts of the children who study in the MGVP School, which holds classes from I to V catering to around 400 children. Saumi Kumari studying in Class 1 wants to study well and get a job so that she could find a way out of the poverty and help her younger siblings through school as well.

For a little girl in a deprived forgotten region, this was a big dream. This is what transforms lives, changes family fortunes and could even lead to a process change in the region.

While Saumi Kumari's sentiment and Narayan Jee's commitment are indeed laudable. The question is that is it fair? Is it enough?

Those who hold the reins of power in the state and have a mandate to bring the fruits of development to all without exception? The community, now joined together in a common cause gave an application at the block level for opening an aanganwadi centre which would take care of the nutritional and educational needs of the children upto 6 years of age.

The government should bring this tiny village in the ambit of its ambitious plans for reaching education to all. In fact it should go a step further. If backwardness, poverty, illiteracy are all road-blocks to education, then it enjoins upon the government to remove these

It is simply unacceptable that the light of education bypasses the children of Mansara Mushar. The responsibility for the children of this region of Bihar lies squarely on the shoulders of those who have taken on the mantle for development, for change.

And this does not mean that it stops at the Primary School level. The Charkha Communication Development network feels that the children will need the avenues to build on their knowledge, their skills, to give shape to their dreams and become change-makers in their own right someday. By Sarita Kumari (ANI)