Garima Singh Satya Bharti School, located in Tehna Depalpur area in interior Rewari district, is the only building that can be seen from a distance as one enters the village. A drawing depicting a young girl with the words ‘Come to Learn’ welcomes visitors to the school.

The co-education school, which runs from pre-primary to Class V, imparts elementary knowledge to the children in the remote area through activity-based learning. Apart from textbooks, it uses toys, building blocks and puzzles to develop their cognitive skills.

“For English and Hindi, we first read the students a story and outline it in a few sentences. The students have to arrange the sentences, written down on chits, in such a manner that the entire story is understood,” said Kamlesh Yadav, head teacher at Satya Bharti School. “I joined this school because it has a unique way of imparting education. Besides chalk and board, it has been using many innovative tools that make learning a joyful experience for children,” Yadav said.

The school in Tehna Depalpur is one of 254 rural schools run by Bharti Foundation for imparting primary and secondary school education to underprivileged children in six States.

Teachers say the idea is to teach the students in a manner that they can relate to. “When we teach them about circles, the students are asked to look out for things that are circular around them and report the same in the class the next day,” a teacher said.

Currently, 139 are enrolled in this school, which follows the NCERT curriculum.

Bhoop Singh, who works at an electronic shop in the village, said: “One of the teachers persuaded us to enrol our daughter and son in this school. We could see a marked change in them and they now show keen interest in their studies. The reason could be the way the teachers approach their subjects.”

His daughter passed fifth standard from the school last year and currently attends a middle school in the village.

One of the front-benchers in class 3, Rakhi, said smilingly, “When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.” Talking about her favourite subject, she said, “It’s environmental studies, but I also like maths.”

Interestingly, the entire staff of the school, including a meal vendor and an attendant apart from seven teachers, are all women.

The school also runs a ‘Design for Change’ (DFC) programme which is meant to create awareness about hygiene and sanitation among not just the students but also their parents.

“Many children fail to turn up in classes as they often fall sick. We realised that this was because of poor hygiene and sanitation. That prompted us to introduce the DFC programme,” Yadav said.

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