Darbhanga, BIHAR / Ernakulam District , KERALA :

Ever since the news of the results filtered in, Sajid, his wife Abida and the teachers at the Binanipuram Government High School have been flooded with congratulatory calls from government quarters and the media.

Bhutto Sajid (right) with his son Dilshad. (Express photo: Vishnu Varma)

Bhutto Sajid, 41, is an ‘angootha chaap’ (illiterate). Born into a poor peasant family in Bihar’s Darbhanga, Sajid’s family didn’t have the financial means to send him to school. Doing odd jobs, first in his village and then later in Delhi, Sajid was among the first wave of migrant workers in 1999 travelling thousands of miles to Kerala, a state grappling with a shortage of labour after its own people left in droves looking for jobs in Gulf countries.

In the past two decades, Sajid has made Kerala home, working in a small shoe factory in the industrial area of Edayar in Ernakulam district and living with his wife and five kids.

If the lack of education suppressed Sajid’s dreams in life, on Sunday, in a bittersweet moment for him, his eldest child, Muhammad Dilshad, made him and his family proud by topping from his Malayalam-medium government school in the Class X Board examinations and securing A+ grade in all subjects.

“Hum gareeb the, nahi padh paye. But mera beta mera sar uncha kar diya (We were poor so couldn’t study. But my son has made me proud),” Sajid said.

Ever since the news of the results filtered in, Sajid, his wife Abida and the teachers at the Binanipuram Government High School have been flooded with congratulatory calls from government quarters and the media.

Sudhi TS, the mathematics teacher at the school who took a special interest in Dilshad’s studies, said he is more happy with his student’s performance than his own son who also appeared for the board examinations this year.

“I used to tease my son by telling him that Dilshad would score better than him. That would get him jolted and serious about studying,” Sudhi said.

Muhammad Dilshad with his Mathematics teacher Sudhi TS at the school. Sudhi opted out of a transfer so he could help Dilshad with his studies. (Express photo/Vishnu Varma)

“In fact, I had the opportunity of a transfer to another school here two years back. I have an asthma condition and this is an industrial area. But I stayed on just to help him (Dilshad) out. I wanted to see him do well in the exams because he has a bright future ahead,” he said, adding that he would often fix special classes at 6 am in the morning for Dilshad’s batch.

The six-decade-old government school, located in an industrial belt on the fringes of Kochi where a large section of inter-state workers are employed, receives a sizeable number of applications of children of such workers into all grades. In Dilshad’s class of 12 students who wrote the board examinations this year, four of them, including him, hail from northern states.

But, the primary hurdle for such students in excelling at studies has been the medium of instruction. Most subjects, with the exception of English and Hindi, are taught in Malayalam at schools like these, which end up making the learning process arduous.

To solve this particular problem, the Ernakulam district administration flagged off the ‘Roshni’ project two years ago through which schools with a large concentration of migrant students were identified. The project, a brainchild of Ernakulam district collector Mohammed Y Safirulla, involves an extra hour of language proficiency class in the morning before regular classes begin.

Teachers under ‘Roshni’ have been trained to use code-switching methodology to help students, from classes I to VII, in familiarising with the Malayalam language. To attract more students to the programme, a round of nutritious breakfast is offered at the school as an incentive.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Education / by Vishnu Varma / May 11th, 2019