Monday, September 12, 2005

Education, Not Interrupted

Preparations for the Dasara festivities are in full swing in Mysore. The star attractions of the Dasara festival are the elephants. They are transported from the forest preserves around Mysore and are housed at the Mysore Palace grounds a few weeks before the festivities actually begin.

Along with the elephants come the mahouts and their families. The school year is already in full swing in India, and this necessarily means that the mahouts' children will miss classes for the two-odd months they are away from their homes. Because they miss two months of classes, many children apparently are in no mood to go back to school even when they return home.

So the education secretary hit upon an idea, to hold classes for the children on the palace grounds.

Sounded so simple when I read it. Why not?

But the idea had to be thought of. It was. And it had to be implemented. This week, it will be.

Read more here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! the idea is so simple yet so lovely... will read the hindu piece and come back here :)

Sujatha Bagal said...

Charu,
Yeah! I'm really hoping that the program will be a success so that it will be replicated elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

I saw the pics on the Hindu article. if I had to study in all that hulla, I would find excuses to keep running away from classes and playing with the elephants and lights :)
(not to write off the effort in any way - this to me is joyful learning)

Sujatha Bagal said...

Charu, :))) Well, these kids are used to the elephants though, so hopefully they'll not be as bad of a distraction.

Michael Higgins said...

Hi Sujatha
Interesting idea.
My thought was that it might be difficult to integrate what they learn in the two month special class with their regular class back home. But definitely, it is good to keep the education going.

Sujatha Bagal said...

Hi Michael, yup. A case of something definitely being better than nothing.