Can Mumbai civic schools match up to this Zilla Parishad school in Maharashtra?

At Khadakwasla, a vibrant classroom with trivia and students' craft on display

Books suspended from strings for students to read in their free time, walls pasted with colourful charts and other interesting items, such as every student's name in Marathi and English, learning addition and subtraction with ice-cream sticks and bottle caps, studying languages while playing word games, and getting introduced to letters and numbers on sand slate - you must be picturing a renowned private school, considering the creative and innovative teaching methods and classroom set-up."

This description, however, is of zilla parishad (ZP) schools from the interiors of Maharashtra. Civic schools from the city, run on heavy budgets, can take some lessons from these ZP schools, which have shed their image of dark and dilapidated buildings, disinterested, lethargic teachers and boring methods of education, on improving the standards of education, one of the major reasons for the former's high dropout rate.

While the state education department has already begun the process to identify model ZP schools and select a handful of experimental and enthusiastic teachers, a plan is in the pipeline to expose all teachers to such interesting learning methods.

In Chiplun, games, charts and other material to learn maths and other concepts

Fun and games
Students at the ZP primary school for girls in Khadakwasla, on the outskirts of Pune, can't wait to come to school every day, not only because each one of them gets teachers' personal attention, but also because their classroom has become their second home - their names on the wall, and their paintings, poems and other craft displayed in class. Classrooms here don't have the conventional rows of benches facing the teacher sitting in front of the blackboard. There are boards on all walls here, a few benches and a lot of open space for children to roam around. "I love to come to school because it is fun. I have so many friends and we all study together while playing fun games," said Rupali Ahire, a Std III student from the school. Std II students here already know how to read small fonts and big sentences with joint words in Marathi.

Similarly, at the ZP school in Mahabaleshwar, there doesn't exist the concept of 'periods' of different subjects. Classrooms here mean children playing in different groups - one group playing the game of making words from given letters, another making sentences from given words; then, a group finding places on maps, while another solving sums with ice-cream sticks or bottle caps. And there will be a group preparing a table that changes every day - it will have a few objects of daily use, right from foodgrains and vegetables to other items, which students have to identify and write down the names next to the items in both Marathi and English, for the others to see and learn.

At little fingertips
A teacher from the ZP school in Raigad has prepared mobile apps based on the curriculum of Stds I to VIII. "Parents may not be educated or have many books at home. But all of them have cellphones these days, which the children keep playing with. We are simply taking advantage of the kids' interest in mobile phones by introducing these apps, which they are bound to find way more interesting than textbooks. These have audio-visual presentations of different concepts, which are also interactive at some levels. Wouldn't you like to listen to or see an animated version of a Shivaji Maharaj story? Similarly, if numbers are made fun with interesting animations to teach mathematics, children won't get bored or be scared of these subjects," said Chitrarekha Jadhav, the teacher. At the ZP school in Latur, Std I students are introduced to letters and numbers on a sand slate. At Chiplun's school, teachers have developed games to teach their respective subjects, especially mathematics and languages. These games have been helping children to learn to read in just 50 days.

Making an example
State education minister Vinod Tawde said, "We have already initiated 'Shikshanaachi Vaari', a project where many such teachers and their innovative ideas are presented in an exhibition in different parts of the state; teachers can visit to learn these new techniques of effective teaching. Such initiatives not only help boost the morale of enthusiastic teachers, but also introduce others to innovative methods they can adopt in classrooms. These are the ways government education will improve its standards to be on par with private schools and international curriculum."

Catch up on all the latest Mumbai, National and International news here

Download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go