March 10 to 12 2019

My first experience in alternative education.

It all began when I got connected with Harshad Tathed, from Pune, who is also the founder of Swayambodh Gurukul. He invited me to visit his special school in Bhosari, a small village on the outskirts of Pune. I was excited, and so I just took a bus from Mumbai and reached Pune the very next day. I got down at Wakad bridge and then took a small auto ride to a particular bus stand from where I took a local transport bus to Bhosari, a fast developing village with quite a population where people don't believe in wearing helmets. I saw traffic police but they were inactive. Anyways but I like the spirit of the place. People were in a hurry all over. The sun was down and soon I was greeted by Harshad who took me to his school just a few meters from the place where I left my local transport.

When I entered the space of Swayambodh Gurukul I saw small groups of kids of varying age sitting together and discussing. Few little grown-ups were solving sample papers as they were having board exams. One thing that was missing and I was happy about, was the pre-exam tension. All the kids were happily solving their papers. Teachers in a small group of 5 to 6 pupil were working out on tough problems. See pictures below.

I was told that all the kids who fail in the board exam are a part of this Gurukul. So this school works mainly on all the kids who fail in regular school for various reasons. They teach them for an entire academic year and help them to get through the board exam. The most interesting part is the way they treat and handle a bunch of pupil. Their approach to problem-solving was very unique. The teachers try their best not to solve the problem but encourage the kids to solve anything & everything on their own. In this way, they boost a lot of confidence within the kids.

Our education system is so bad that once a child fails in a subject the school system makes sure to project it as the child's greatest failure. Failing in one subject simply means that the subject is not meant for the child.

While talking to the children of Swayambodh, I came across another harsh reality. In a village like Bhosari, if a child fails in school then the parents quite actively take him out from the school and put him for farming or in the family business. This kind of act simply means the family considered him unqualified for higher studies. In my view, both the school & the family failed to understand the potential of their child. It's very unfortunate & sad.

In rural areas, we definitely have educational problems, but it co-exists with some social and personal issues too. So just by solving the problems of education, we can not take it for granted that the problem is really solved. In Bhosari village I saw teachers counselling parents, the students from the gurukul itself were in constant touch & try to bring in such children who failed in school and were forced to do household works, farming or family business. This was something new for me. While talking to the teachers they said 'the problem is quite larger than what we see, so we use every possible way to tackle the situation and bring back children to where they belong instead of ploughing land or working somewhere at a young age'.

I was quite amazed to see the idea of giving the children a feel & taste of entrepreneurship in a very unconventional way under the leadership of Harshad Tathed, the founder of Swayambodh Gurukul. While talking to him personally, he tried his best to convince me the fact that 'today's children are very advanced in every way of their life, why should we wait for 20 years or more for giving them something which they can easily achieve at a much younger age'. I was not convinced until I met Om Patil (pic. above) a student cum entrepreneur of the same institute.

Om Patil, age 15 a student who is appearing for his SSC board exam this year (2019) is also the master of his own business of catering. He supply waiters and also rent out big size utensils required for cooking purposes in marriage and other big gatherings. While talking to the young businessman I felt a strong and positive energy working behind his confidence. With all his experience he said, 'once I myself used to work as a waiter, today I have more than 10 waiters working under me, I also give big utensils on rent'. Out of my curiosity I asked him how much he manage in a month, to which he said, 'around fifteen to sixteen thousand', after a few seconds of pause the most inspiring words then came out from his mouth, 'from what I earn I also support my family'.

I don't know why but somehow or other I have always felt the village boys are more evolved than the boys living in the jungle of concrete.

more experience coming soon....