BEP initiative: 4.5 lakh girls can read now

PATNA: Till a month ago, nine-year-old Shama Parvin, a class IV student of a government-run primary school at Naya Tola in Phulwarisharif, could not read a word of Hindi. "The boys in my class used to make so much of noise that I simply could never concentrate," she said. But with the government's policy of not failing any child, Shama kept getting promoted year after year even though her classes failed to educate her. But today, Shama can read full sentences in Hindi, albeit haltingly. She takes special pleasure in reading from books that have large colourful illustrations. Shama is one of the 4.5 lakh girls across 38 districts who participated in month-long special summer camps held at 15,000 centres. The camps, which began in the first week of June, were organised by the Bihar Education Project with support from Unicef. Only those girls were chosen for the camps who could not read at all. And interestingly, about 75 per cent of the participants were found to be regular students of government schools. BEP special project director Anjani Kumar Singh told TOI on Friday the camps were held on an experimental basis for the first time in the state. These were held in 76 blocks; that is, in two blocks in every district. He said about 15,000 teachers drawn from different government schools were specially trained to conduct these camps. These teachers were trained in the art of 'joyful learning', a well-known method of making learning more enjoyable for students. Singh is very satisfied with the manner in which the camps were conducted. "Unicef will carry out the evaluation and based on its findings, we will decide our next course of action. We may make these camps an annual feature and even have special focus on SC/ST and Muslim girls," he said. Unicef education officer Job Zachariah said, "The evaluation results would be known by the end of July. Of the 4.5 lakh girls chosen from this programme, about one lakh had never been to school."