Mission to the future

Mission to the future

FPJ BureauUpdated: Saturday, June 01, 2019, 08:11 AM IST
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Sayali Malvi, a product of Bhavishya Yaan, stood first in the recent SSC exams across all the municipal schools in the city. |

A slightly faded mural on the first floor of the Colaba Secondary Municipal School depicts a boy and a girl who brandishes a book in her hand. The duo flies on a pencil. This picture embodies the vision of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) or education for all, and it sums up the Government’s hope that everyone studies and everyone progresses. The SSA is well-known both for its good intentions and its shortcomings.

In a hall on this very floor, a felicitation event by Bhavishya Yaan, a programme by the Rotary Club of Bombay, is set to commence. Students from municipal schools trickle in along with well-heeled members from the Club. There is some buzz in the air about the arrival of a popular Bollywood celebrity, and the students are restless.

But, Sayali Malvi, an unassuming 17 year old, is the true star of the event for she has stood first in the SSC examination among all the municipal schools in the city. Sayali scored an enviable 93 per cent and is a pass-out from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal School, Worli.

I steal this bespectacled youngster from the packed hall just minutes before the start of the event. She assertively says, “The biggest problem is the manner in which people differentiate between a convent school student and a student from a poor school. Most people think that students in public schools can’t do well. I wanted to prove them wrong. My parents kept asking me to join a private school, but I didn’t.” Sayali, who is now pursuing a diploma in electronics from a reputed engineering institute, wants to study further and “do something extraordinary”.

“I want to be an engineer and I want to work in India,” she continues. It is not enough to note that Sayali has the most striking views on education, but she speaks confidently in fluent English. If a municipal school provided Sayali with an education, she has been pruned to perfection by Bhavishya Yaan.

Functioning across five schools in Mumbai, the five year old programme by the Rotary Club of Bombay has impacted around 1200 students till date. Bhavishya Yaan is an attempt at bringing quality skills to education in municipal schools. Their triad of skills – life skills, computer knowledge and conversational English – seems like the first set of ropes required to bridge the gap between students from private and public schools. A member of Bhavishya Yaan states that it is not enough to have students passing-out of schools but to also give them employable skills.

Bhavishya Yaan is developed as an after-school programme for students from the sixth standard onwards. The programme usually finishes when the students enter the formidable tenth standard and thus need to focus on scoring a worthwhile percentage.

Rashna Cooper, a school coordinator of Bhavishya Yaan, says, “We don’t select students for the programme based on marks or report cards or backgrounds. We need a commitment from the child and the parents that the child will stick with us for the entire duration of the programme.”

It may seem like a small favour to ask of parents, for have we not heard of children going for tuitions and swimming classes and karate classes and music classes and origami classes after school? But this is not a reality for students from low income families. Rashna observes that asking students to stay back for a couple of hours for four years means telling parents to fetch them, or packing an extra tiffin or not expecting girls to be back home to help with household chores.

Luckily, making a commitment to Bhavishya Yaan inevitably means making a commitment to academics as well. All their students pass out with flying colours and this is despite the high dropout rates and poor pass-out percentages seen at municipal schools.

The buzzword across many sectors is “public-private partnerships” and Rashna states that the BMC schools have been very open to such collaborations. The Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal School has provided Bhavishya Yaan with two rooms – a computer lab and a classroom – for its activities and encourages its students to register with the free programme. There are twenty students per batch, since the focus is on individual attention.

Sometimes, numbers exceed the limit by a student or two. Rashna recalls admitting an adamant student who stopped her at hallways asking why his name wasn’t on the final list. His mother, who worked as a stone-breaker on construction sites saw the value of sending her resolute son for the programme.

At the felicitation programme, two young boys make a presentation about Bhavishya Yaan in English. Their perfect multimedia Powerpoint is discordant with the dilapidated interiors. They further wow you when they say that they prepared the presentation entirely by themselves. While these students from vernacular mediums are slow to pick up English skills, they take to computer skills like fish to water. They start with the very basics – like switching on a computer or greeting people.

Another pass-out, Dipika Pawar, eloquently encourages the students to dream on. The 19 year old is pursuing a degree in IT and wants to specialise in Cyber Law. “Bhavishya Yaan is a place where your dreams can come true. But it is up to you whether you want to fly or not,” she muses.

When you look at the Bhavishya Yaan logo, it has a striking resemblance to the SSA logo. With the small difference that there is a pen launched like a rocket. Just like the nation’s successful Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan missions, Bhavishya Yaan is just the kind of push required in public education systems, so that students can dream of a better future.

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