by Dr. Arvind Amin,
The Beginning
Like many NRIs, I have nurtured a secret longing to give back to my motherland. In my case I
have been passionate about giving back where it matters most – the children of India. More
than 25% of our 1.2 billion population are in the impressionable phase where good education
can seal a better future for them and their families. My passion for educating India’s
children led me to join Pratham USA in 2003. Pratham is the largest education NGO in India
focusing on children from 6-14 years of age.
After reading many stories over a decade and gathering better understanding of primary
education issues, I received a golden opportunity in 2015 when my employer, Intel, generously
gave me a 6-week sabbatical. Instead of gallivanting my family off to Europe or another exotic
location, I decided to spend this time in Punsari - a small village in North Gujarat. Why
Punsari? I had heard of Punsari as a model village of India in media reports and how it
represented everything about the new “shining” India. The optimist in me wanted to visit and
learn first-hand about this modern Indian village which in my mind was the complete opposite
of the rural India I had grown up in.
After my initial day visit of the village, I came back with an impression that indeed Punsari
is a model village that had finally reaped the fruits of progress India has been striving for
since its independence. The Sarpanch of the Village, Himanshu Patel, was a gracious host and
made an extra effort to show me as well Zee News crew around the village for a couple hours.
He took pride in showcasing the infrastructure improvements in his village. Gone were the days
of women walking miles down dusty cobbled path to fetch water. Instead, Punsari has gleaming
concrete roads, clean drinking water that is easily accessible, toilets and even Wi-Fi access!
He also highlighted the zero dropout rate of the village schools. Mr. Patel’s palpable pride
in his village was contagious and I returned back to US with dreams of returning to Punsari to
conduct research 0n how Punsari’s development model could be replicated across thousands of
villages in India. My goal was to find out how the young Sarpanch brought these changes and
created unheard of awareness on many issues among the villagers with limited resources. What
|was the governance model within Panchayat Raj?
The Reality
I could barely hold my excitement as I made my trip back to Punsari six months later in June
2015. I had done my homework, identified the scope of the project and was ready to set the
ball rolling amidst the gleaming paved roads in Punsari. I was transported back to reality
when I first saw the facilities Mr. Patel had arranged for my visit. Though comfortable, they
were very different from my lifestyle in the US. I got my first taste of rustic living–
transitioning from air-conditioned comfort to a noisy fan that worked on its own will, a leaky
bathroom that caused puddles of water for mosquitoes to breed on and above all, no concept of
a trash bin! Yet I realized that this humble abode would be the dream of the majority of
residents in Punsari or any village of India and once again I felt inspired in my belief that
good education is the ultimate tool to end the economic disparity so prevalent in India. I
spent the first few days cleaning the place, buying basic amenities like a clean bed sheet,
trash bin and a kerosene stove for cooking. It was quite a humbling experience!
I set out to explore the neighborhoods, make observations and identify potential
collaborators. During the course of my interaction with youth as well as adults, I sensed a
major issue of an outdated mind-set and lack of responsibility. I could not get anyone to
commit to meeting on-time or come through on commitments that I saw as simple chores for the
village. Despite the claims of Wi-Fi access & availability throughout the village I could not
access Wi-Fi outside the Panchayat office.
I ended up offering a workshop on soft-skill training to all college bound youth as a part of
my exploration. Of the expected 15 attendees only 4 boys showed some interest. The rest did
not care to even collect free material I distributed. I found almost all girls to be shy and
unwilling to discuss their interests or issues. I ended up drastically scaling back my project
scope and focused strictly on primary education.
 |
| Fifth Grade Students who participated in learning level assessment |
.My first education meeting was with 5 heads of primary schools under the Punsari Panchayat. I
broached my objective of conducting learning level assessments during the meeting and this was
welcomed by all. I decided to focus on 5th standard across these schools in Punsari for my
assessment. The assessment tool used was the basic ASER assessment, to gauge reading abilities
and basic mathematical abilities. I assessed the children on a graded scale, from a simple
story in Gujarati to paragraphs, sentence reading, words and alphabet recognition. In
addition, I used Pratham’s learning camp math tool for 8th standard. The assessment results
were surprising and disappointing for the optimist in me. Here is brief synopsis of my findings:
Key Findings –
In the village of Punsari, 50% of 5th standard and 25% of 8th standard didn’t meet the targets
set for 3rd standard. A lack of reading skills was clearly evident as over a quarter of 5th
graders couldn’t read simple stories. The problems compounded from primary to upper primary
school as only 10% of students in 8th grade understood and differentiated the properties of a
rectangle or circle. This poor academic performance stems from key systematic issues such as
absenteeism (>10%), high student/teacher ratio and use of valuable teaching manpower in
administrative activities. Half of the 5th standard and a quarter of the 8th standard children
are below the 3rd standard level.
 |
| Eighth grade students showing off the maths test! |
The End
Spending six weeks in Punsari was a worthwhile experience despite my unmet expectations. The
media hype of Punsari as a model village could have been avoided if one of the reporters had
spent some time in the village asking the right questions beyond short interviews and
listening to the development claims. For example, where are the Panchayat members doing the
hard work? Are there any young leaders groomed for long-term development? What is the
utilization of Wi-Fi? As seen in my learning level assessment, Punsari turns out to be an
average Gujarat village. There is no upkeep of the infrastructure when property is damaged and
equipment fails. There are many other villages in Gujarat which have similar or better
development stories. I would have liked to see impact in neighboring villages of the “Punsari
Model” such as sanitation, street light or best practices of the Panchayat. Punsari is a
great success story of how a good PR can fool media. I’m left with one simple question: Who is
going to continue to tell visitors the PR story when Mr. Himanshu Patel moves on?
In midst of this bad news, the silver lining was the importance of education that is widely
recognized amongst parents as a key to their children’s better future. Many parents believe
sending children to private schools is the answer to the poor public school education. At a
grassroots level, both parents and children are hungry to get a better education and break
from the generational poverty cycle. In fact, this desire for better education spurred me to
find a silver bullet. But alas, there is no one such fix – there needs to be a group effort
for India’s millennials to get the quality of education they deserve. From government support
of infrastructure to a better quality of teachers, India needs it all. The bright young minds
of India deserve our efforts. Pratham’s role for improving learning levels with teacher
training certainly will make an impact but I wonder if it is just a drop in the ocean.
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