night
This
Madrugada month in the journal, published by the association
Macondo, came out my article on the education system proposed by the Barefoot College of Tilonia, which I have already spoken
here and that is the subject I present the documentary at the International Festival soon Ferrara.
I reproduce below:
"Nearly six in the afternoon and Neraj, a 12 year old girl who lives in the village of Kotri, Rajasthan State, India, went home with the goats, which led to pasture.
It 's the third of five children-three girls and two boys, a poor peasant family campaign India.
must still milking two goats and give them to drink before being able to freshen up the face and run into a nearby farm whose owner has decided to provide free one of the rooms of the house at the School of Night of the children in this area .
Neraj not want to miss the lesson, the rest must set a good example for others, since it is involved in the organization of night school and also as president of the Bal Sansad, Parliament of Children, which administers the 559 schools on the whole country.
Neraj To give opportunities to thousands of children and other poor living in rural areas of India to go to school and participate in social and political community is an organization founded nearly 40 years ago under the name of SWRC (Social Work and Research Center), now known as the Barefoot College
, the School of bare feet.
Founded in 1972 by Bunker Roy, a young member of the wealthy middle class Bengali decided to pursue a 'career' unorthodox, the Barefoot College is now proposed to enter into the concrete reality of rural India's trying to solve some of the local emergencies.
Starting from the practical needs of people in the first instance health, drinking water, work, the organization looked for a road that came directly from the people involved, and that they could manage without intermediaries and without external help.
Among the various solutions proposed by the Barefoot College, in particular concentrates on 'education', that the organization was structured in an original way. The key assumptions of the approach
Barefoot in education can be summarized in part in Gandhi's phrase, 'learning to read and write is not the end of education nor his principle. It is only a means by which one can educate a man and a woman. Reading and writing in itself is not education '. As Mahatma
fact, Bunker Roy argues that the degree of education or an official document to establish the value and usefulness of a person, but its practical capacity to contribute to its development and that of the community. The meaning of education goes well beyond the mere intellectual exercise, but instead includes traditional knowledge learned from the family, the awareness and civic participation, the learning of manual work productive.
These principles, however, were to be applied to a society where illiteracy and early school leaving were dominant.
The children of Indian farmers, past and present, are excluded from the government school for several reasons: they are children who need help to maintain family helping with housework, in the fields or in farm animals. The government schools are often too expensive or too loose, not to mention the old problem of chronic absenteeism state teachers who desert the lessons thwarting the efforts of families. The Barefoot College
thought then, since 1975, to propose a different approach to the problem, creating the first Night schools, night schools that welcome children back from daily tasks to provide three hours of lessons taught by a 'barefoot teacher '. It was the College to propose that teachers, salaried by the community (and thus controlled by the village community), to be formed internally supported by a deep reasoning and passion for this profession, even without an official title could, after appropriate training to teach in schools. The Government of Rajasthan
strongly opposed to these proposals, arguing that sending children to school after a day of work was an injustice and make them follow from teachers without licenses was illegal. Bunker Roy, however, stay the course, and now 3500 children (of which 2800 females) regularly attending the Night Schools in Rajasthan state alone.
The school, housed in premises made available free of charge by any member of the village community, being supplied with drinking water (which unfortunately is not always available in government schools) and solar lighting.
The subjects taught include, in addition to those traditionally included in the curriculum, including civic education and a practical discipline, which gives the opportunity-especially girls-and then to undertake an independent profession.
But in class, open to a song that speaks of one God only, which can have many names, it also speaks of the everyday problems: the difficulties of working parents, caste, child marriage, the pollution of ' environment.
In 1993 he formed a special body that manages hundreds of schools and night spread over the entire territory of India. The Bal Sansad, Parliament Children, consists of a president (Neraj now is the girl we were talking about) and 13 members, elected by the children of Night Schools every two years. Parliament meets once a month to discuss the problems of schools, the supply of teaching materials, the efficiency of teachers, the practicability of the classrooms, children's participation in lessons. It is not a game, is an organ that has real powers.
The idea behind it is that politics, when it is clean is done to improve the lives of people (big and small), and that everyone can and must make its contribution so that the system works. Many of the children who were members of Parliament proseguono in età adulta il loro impegno nell’ambito del Barefoot College – e delle centinaia di altre piccole associazioni locali derivate dal College, per portare avanti il lungo e paziente lavoro di cambiamento della mentalità: trasformare la gente delle campagne, analfabeti e semianalfabeti che spesso non hanno consapevolezza delle proprie possibilità e dei propri diritti in persone autonome, responsabili e in grado di affermare la propria dignità".