BREAKING THE CLASS BARRIER

THE GOVERNMENT-RUN CM RISE SCHOOLS IN MADHYA PRADESH SEEK TO BRING QUALITY EDUCATION TO UNDERPRIVILEGED CHILDREN. BUT SOME FEEL BY DOING SO THE PROJECT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST OTHER SCHOOLS

- RAHUL NORONHA

TWELVE YEAR OLD VIKAS (name changed), a student of class IV at the government-run CM RISE school in the Barkhedi area of Bhopal, is diffident when asked to write his name in English. It's not surprising-the first-generation learner, is just one of the millions of children students who spent the past two years at home due to Covid-induced lockdowns. Moreover, government schools have long been afflicted by low-quality teaching and a dearth of infrastructure, leading to learning gaps. Vikas has been promoted every year without an assessment of his learning.

The Madhya Pradesh government's latest, but not the first, intervention in school education aims to address this. Students at the Barkhedi government school returned to the campus after two years to find swanky classrooms with electronic teaching aids, new furniture, air-conditioned libraries, a counseling room, a medical room, a music class with instruments, and even an AI lab. Like many of his classmates from modest backgrounds, Vikas says he doesn't want to go back home.

The institution is one of a series of schools the MP government has set up across the state, particularly to address low-quality pedagogy, bridge learning gaps, and provide services usually identified with private schools. A total of 380 CM RISE (an acronym for Respect Integrity Strength and Excellence) schools, both in urban and rural areas, have been started with this express purpose, and have become functional in the last fortnight. It will be scaled up to 9,200 in the next 10 years.