Siblings Sonal (8 years) and Jigar (10 years) Meenama had never attended school or attended any formal classes, but everything changed on Sunday morning. Instead of his daily routine of taking care of his two younger siblings and helping with household chores, today he stood outside his hut at the Doordarshan Tower crossroads, waiting for the yellow bus.
Yellow Bus is ‘Signal School’ – an initiative implemented by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Municipal School Board with support from the state government and Gujarat State Legal Services Authority (GSLSA).
Children aged 6-10 years quickly take their places in the rows, climbing the stairs at the signal of the teacher. After greeting the teacher, they imitate their teacher and offer Gujarati prayer with folded hands. Soon his attention is drawn to the rhymes being played in front of him on the TV screen.
Signal scheme was launched outside Gujarat High Court Auditorium on Sunday morning. In attendance are Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, Education Minister Jitu Vaghani, Law and Justice Minister Rajendra Trivedi along with Supreme Court Justices Justice MR Shah and Justice Bela Trivedi, Gujarat High Court Chief Justice Arvind Kumar and Justice RM Chhaya, who is also the acting Chairman. GSLSA. Ten buses then proceeded on designated routes, picking up children from traffic signals, carrying them through first grade on the bus, the route ending at the nearest municipal school.
With the motto of ‘Bhiksha Nahi, Shiksha’, the scheme has started with 10 idle buses of Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service (AMTS) which have been converted into a mobile school specially for the purpose. AMC had announced the Signal School Scheme for children at traffic signals across the city – with a sanctioned budget of Rs 3 crore.
Parents of around 150 children were seen eagerly waiting for their children to board the bus for the first time at over 40 major traffic signals in the city.
When Sonal chooses to remain silent, Jigar says ‘I want to be a good man’ when asked why he wants to study and what he wants to be. Originally residents of Petlad in Anand district, the siblings lost their father a few years back. As seasonal migrants, they now live in roadside shanties near the Doordarshan Tower square. His mother works as a daily wage earner to support a family of five.
Most of the 20 children at Signal School on this route had not attended any formal school before. Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner Lochan Sehra said that this plan has been prepared keeping this fact in mind.
“After conducting a survey to identify such children, a series of meetings with their parents were followed to convince them. Now it is a gap filling scheme depending on their learning level after a period of six months or one year, these children will be mainstreamed in nearby municipal schools. This will be followed by another group of children who are outside the formal education system,” says Sehra.
Each signal school has a teacher and an assistant teacher and its walls are decorated with colorful pictures with messages of good habits. The terraces have been converted into an open sky painted with a rainbow. Basic text such as letters, numbers, fruits and vegetables are painted in vibrant colors under the windows. These buses also have a TV screen, a writing board, a small desk and chair for the teacher, and toys and games for the children.
The children in the Signal School, which runs like a normal school, will be provided mid-day meals at the nearest municipal school. They will also be covered under the state government’s scheme of medical check-up to municipal schools under the School Health Program (SHP). For example, in Sonal and Jigar’s case, the school route ended at the primary school in Vastrapur, this particular signal informs Vipul Choudhary, the assistant administrative officer attached to the school.
In the initial days, to instil confidence, parents are also allowed onboard.
Accepting the challenge of persuading parents to continue sending their children, Sehra said, “For this, we have covered the families of these children as well. For their upliftment, they will be given the benefits of all government schemes and efforts will be made to stop begging them. They are outside the social safety net. So if we do not pay attention to the parents, they will not send their children to school.”
“I want my children to study but we keep migrating from one place to another. But if such a school is available in other parts of the city as well, I will continue to send them to them,” said Mintudevi Vaghari, who was waiting outside the bus for her two children, aged 6 and 7.
Municipal School Board administrative officer LD Desai says that based on the demand, this scheme will be repeated with more buses. School Board President Dr Sujoy Mehta said that instead of appointing regular senior teachers for these buses, 20 young dynamic teachers have been recruited on contract basis.