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The small school with a gleaming slate roof, nestling amongst the hills of Shaya in Himachal Pradesh, begins every day sharp at 10. Yet many of the students have already gathered in the playing ground long before the bell rings for the school. They sit around, chatting or playing cricket with a homemade bat and cloth ball. Some wander off to the edge of the playing field to pluck ripe peaches and wild raspberries. "We always come
early because we walk down all the way from the top of the
mountain," says a tall girl, her long hair tied in neat plaits,
pointing to a high, deodar- covered peak. "It takes us an hour
and a half, and even more if it is raining," she says, speaking
for a group of children. She is too shy to tell me her name, and
scampers away full of energy despite her long trek from the top of The children do not seem to mind the strenuous walk to the school everyday, and the dropout rate is almost nil in this school, which has 200 students. While some walk down the hill from surrounding villages, many live just next door, and can reach home by just leaping over a few rocks and a stream. The Middle School in Shaya village started almost 50 years ago with only 10 students, all boys, in a village courtyard. "We were taught by a guruji who came from Uttarakhand. His salary was Rs 15 along with food, which was given by the parents of the boys," recalls one of the oldest ex-students of the school, Thakur Jagjit Singh. Now his grandson Kartik has passed out from the same school, and gone to senior school in the neighbouring town of Rajgarh. Many other older residents of Shaya and Neri Kotli villages have studied in this school, and recall their school days with mixed feelings. "I used to get beaten a lot with a cane, but then I never could remember my lessons. Those days we had only one teacher for the entire school — almost 60-70 children. So the only way to keep order was to punish half the school," says Suresh Kumar, laughing. He gave up after class eight, but his son and daughter are studying here now. " It has improved a lot and has good teachers now," he says. "Over the years the school has grown. New pucca classrooms have been added, and now we have 200 students, and almost half are girls. The dropout rate is nil and the children study very seriously now. Many of our students have found good jobs in Solan and Shimla, and some have joined the Army or the merchant navy," says the young headmaster of Shaya school, Vijay Kumar, who himself is an ex-student along with five other teachers. "The attitude of the parents has also changed, and now they have become aware about sending their children to school. Earlier, we had to go from house to house, asking them to send their children to school, but now all that has changed, and we have students walking several kilometres to come to the school," adds Vijay Kumar. The children begin with prayers, followed by exercises and marching up and down to a drum beat. The entire hillside echoes with their somewhat unmusical, yet lively singing, and their parents working in their fields nearby stop to listen. Though many of them have not been to school themselves and cannot understand half of what their children learn, they are still very keen to send their own children to school. "We know that most of these children have to work in their fields and orchards after they go home to help their parents. So we keep that in mind when we give them homework to do. It is also difficult for them to get any help from their parents since most of them have not done science or maths ever. Yet our children do well, and many of them have got admission to colleges in Solan," says Ranbir Thakur, a teacher, who has been teaching in the Shaya school for many years. Today there is absolute silence as we walk around the school. The younger children are chanting their tables, while the older ones are listening to their class teacher. The mud walls of the older rooms of the school are neatly plastered with clay, swept clean and painted with a white border of lime stone. The Shaya school, which was made from primary to middle about 10 years ago, was recently awarded Rs 40,000 by the District Development Authority for being the cleanest school in the area, and the children who help keep their school clean are very proud of it. In one corner in a large kitchen the mid-day meal is being cooked. The children get a good, nourishing meal everyday in school, and that has proved to be a great incentive amongst parents to send their children, especially girls, to school regularly. "I know that my children will be well fed, and will also study all day while I am out cutting grass," says Kanta, a widow who lives in a remote hut on top of the hill. "When I was young, very few girls went to school, and if they did, they did not study beyond class five. My mother said that was enough for girls. Now the girls are so clever and can read books. But they must not forget how to cut grass or look after the cattle. Those things are important for us in our villages," she says. The Headmaster’s room is filled with trophies, which the Shaya school has won over the years.
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