A summer of contentment

At 7.30 on a cloudy May morning, a riot of Std VI boys, dressed in all-white uniforms, bursts through the gates at a north-east Delhi school. Some 75 of them take their positions on the large lawn, sitting cross-legged and upright for the day’s yoga class. They breathe in and out, stretch, bend, lean, twist and meditate, alert to their teacher’s instructions wafting through the morning breeze. After yoga comes sports — long jump, kho-kho , football and so on. There’s also a range of hobby classes, arts and crafts, science clubs, library time and computer lessons, depending on their interest.

This could be mistaken as any well-maintained private school where teachers appear kind and willing to engage with a child’s curiosity. Except this is not. This is the Government Boys Senior Secondary School (GBSSS) at Wazirpur’s Ashok Vihar 1, north-east Delhi. It shares a campus with two other schools — the Government Girls Senior Secondary School (GGSSS) and a Sarvodaya Vidyalaya, whose students can be seen using the playground for morning football practice and kho-kho .

This summer, there are 60,000 sixth-graders participating in free summer camps organised by the Delhi government across 1,000 public schools. The camps were introduced last year, something usually known to be organised by private schools — and that too for an exorbitant fee. Government schools typically only hold remedial classes for the board batches. “If not for the camp, we would be home right now burying ourselves in homework and getting bored,” giggles 10-year-old Nandini. Her father ferries passengers on a rickshaw and her mother is a tailor. It’s been only a month since she moved from an MCD primary school to GGSSS.

There are about 2,500 students in these three schools combined. Most children, like Nandini, live in the Wazirpur Industrial Area, home to one of India’s largest steel-producing areas. Most belong to BPL (Below Poverty Line) families whose parents are factory workers, rickshaw pullers or construction labourers. Some are a bit better off, working in ancillary industries such as small computer shops. Many of them are illiterate or school dropouts. But their children, several of them first-generation learners, are making the most of the opportunities their schools provide.

At the science camp, inside one of the classrooms, is the calm and poised Ruksaan Khatun, working on a simple model that demonstrates the principle of persistence of vision. She shows me a periscope she made using cardboard and pieces of glass and mirror in her science corner. I also learn from her why the earth appears round. “ Kendrapraarak bal aur kendravimukh bal ” she explains, unpacking the centrifugal ( kendrapraarak ) and centripetal ( kendravimukh ) forces that make the flatter edges at the poles seem rounded. Khatun’s father is a construction labourer and she dreams of becoming a science teacher. The science camp is conducted by NGO Agastya International Foundation. Apart from regular teachers, the schools depend on NGO volunteers and guest teachers for their activities.

But why is the summer camp only for sixth-graders? “Std VI is the period of transition from primary to secondary and we want students to ease into the next gear of schooling comfortably. There is also some amount of catching up to do before school begins, which explains the theme this year ‘ kuchh masti , kuchh padhai ’ (some fun, some study),” says Shailendra Sharma, principal advisor to the directorate of education for the Delhi government. Sharma also explains that the challenge in extending the camp to all classes is, primarily, arranging a battalion of motivated teachers who will do the job. While guest teachers are paid ₹1,400 a day, regulars only get earned leave. Also it remains to be figured how the staff will juggle their teaching commitments with their internal training sessions scheduled that time. The schools are allotted a budget of ₹2,500 for supplies and ₹780 per child for the three-week camp (this includes a daily snack allowance).

For the 3 hours every day from May 11-June 3, the camp’s duration, Delhi’s children are finding their groove and their smiles say it all.

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