Education: Nitish Kumar’s high grades, and then a dip

Sakshi Kumari (16) sees her father maybe for six or seven days twice a year when he returns home from Delhi. “I miss him a lot,” she says. He isa carpenter ina factory. Like many other households in Bihar her mother holds the fort at home: Bringing up the children (Sakshi has an elder sister and a younger brother, who, she says disapprovingly, is “very naughty”); tilling a small piece of land that ison rent froma landlord to supplement the family income: and looking after the in laws. Sakshi is not sure but she thinks the family’s expenditure is “around %50,000 a month — on food, to service the loans we have taken in the past, and on education”.

- ADITI PHADNIS

SAKSHI KUMARI (16), WHO STOOD FIRST IN BIHAR'S CLASS 10 EXAM THIS YEAR, IS A PRODUCT OF THE TURNAROUND IN BIHAR'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THAT BEGAN IN 2005 - AND THE CRISIS IT IS FACING NOW. BY 2023-24, AROUND 25,000 TEACHERS WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION

Sakshi stood first in Bihar’s Class 10 exam this year. She says offhand: “IfIcan remember right, I got 9 per cent in Sanskrit and social sciences, 95 in science, 98 in maths, and 99 in Hindi.” She quickly corrects herself: “No, I got 98 in Hindi.”

She isa product of the turnaround in Bihar’s educational system that began in 2005 — and the crisis it is facing now.

She lives and studies in Narhan, asmall village 30 km from Samastipur, in the local private school. “But for two years I also attended coaching classes. ‘This meant an additional expense of 500-650” she says. “I felt I needed tuition, sol used Newton College and KGN Coaching Institute.”

The owner of the KGN Institute says: “We coach 1,000 children and this will go to 1,300 next year. We subsidise the fees of children from low-income families. lam convinced, looking at Sakshi’s results, that it is the correct thing to do.”

Sakshi has no hobbies. She likes to go for walks and helps out her mother in the fields, especially during the sowing or harvesting season. “We had asmall TV. Mota wala tha (it was the bulky kind). But one ortwo years ago it stopped working and noone had the money to get it fixed. In any case, Ihave no interest in the kind of stuff they show. There’s too much drama and overacting,” she says with disdain.

The story of Bihar’s educational reform isa lesson for all reforms done halfway.