Image this – each Friday, college students of the Akshar Faculty in Assam congregate like eco-warriors on a mission. They arrive, bearing every week’s price of collected plastic, their arms and pockets stuffed with discarded bottles, wrappers, amongst others.
Situated within the lush inexperienced space of Pamohi locality within the state, the varsity doesn’t need its pupils to compensate them with cash. As a substitute, they solely settle for plastic within the type of charges!
Based by Parmita Sarma and Mazin Mukhtar in 2016, within the coronary heart of Assam’s verdant paradise, this faculty has efficiently turned schooling into an journey, and charges right into a pledge for a brighter, extra sustainable future.
“We needed to make the approaching era from underprivileged sections break the circle of poverty and be environmentally delicate. Schooling is the one approach these objectives could be achieved,” Parmita Sarma, the founding father of Akshar Faculty, tells The Higher India.
The couple has collected and recycled about 1,200 bottles and 6,43,600 plastic wrappers so removed from the varsity youngsters. Moreover, the varsity follows a singular model of schooling the place they place the scholars in grades as per their tutorial aptitude and never their age as is completed in conventional faculties.
Making schooling accessible to all
Born in Mumbai, Parmita was largely raised in Guwahati, Assam. “From a really younger age, I had an inclination in direction of doing issues for others. My household was very politically conscious, which additional pushed me to the trail of social work,” she says.
“After finishing my grasp’s in social work, I made a decision to work within the area of schooling as I consider that schooling is an integral a part of the method of breaking the cycle of poverty. I needed to arrange a free faculty,” she provides.
It was in 2013 when Parmita was in Lakhimpur to work for Bhupen Hazarika, Assam’s legendary singer and social employee, when she met Mazin. “By way of our conversations at Bhupun Hazarika’s faculty, we realised how we each needed to open a faculty that helps underprivileged kids get entry to high quality schooling,” she says.
This laid the seeds for the inspiration of Akshar Faculty. “At the moment, we couldn’t afford to buy land and construct a faculty from scratch. It was my mom who donated the land and a few funds to start out the varsity,” she says.
The college immediately is situated in Pamohi and affords free schooling to its college students. “We began with simply 10 college students because the villagers didn’t need their youngsters to check. As a substitute, they needed them to work. It took us a variety of convincing to get even these ten youngsters to highschool,” she recollects.
At present the varsity is flooded with 150 kids. How did they obtain that? Nicely, they got here up with an attention-grabbing answer. Whereas designing numerous curriculums, the couple spoke to some college students and discovered one thing that turned the inspiration for his or her distinctive thought.
“The kids instructed us that they burn plastic luggage and bottles throughout winter to maintain themselves heat. This was alarming and we determined that this wants to finish,” she says.
That is when the thought of accumulating plastic got here to the couple.
“We requested all our children to gather plastic all week and produce no less than 25 items of plastic by the top of the week. Initially, nobody took us significantly. After we instructed them that this was their charge, the scholars slowly began bringing plastic each Friday,” she says.
Together with this, the founders got here up with one other path breaking answer to assist the unemployment scenario of the locality. “We observed that many kids began to skip faculty to do day by day wage work. We determined to make use of these youngsters within the faculty and pay them in order that they might attend faculty,” Parmita explains.
She continues, “As the scholars improve to the next class, we make use of the acceptable ones to show the decrease courses underneath supervision. For this service, we pay them. This fashion, our children have the motivation to check properly and change into ‘pupil lecturers’ and earn pocket cash as properly,” she says.
This mannequin helped them achieve extra attendance. “By the top of 2016, we had round 200 college students ready to get admission within the faculty,” she says.
Whereas the mannequin labored properly for the varsity, Parmita noticed that folks had been taking cash from their kids’s earnings for private bills, together with shopping for liquor. To deal with this difficulty, the varsity determined to exchange money with factors.
Every level, for instance, 50 factors symbolize Rs 50, making certain that the funds are spent solely on the kid’s wants. The college additionally partnered with native outlets promoting sweets and clothes to permit college students to make use of their factors there. The college administration then settles the payments on their behalf in money. This technique has safeguarded college students and their hard-earned cash.
“This fashion we might be certain that the cash will get spent solely on the youngsters’ wants,” says Parmita.
Moreover, the varsity additionally has a financial institution. “This was launched to the youngsters to show them cash administration and the significance of saving cash. The children can deposit their weekly factors within the financial institution and save them. They will maintain accumulating them and purchase one thing costly too. For instance, many youngsters saved up for months and had been capable of purchase cell phones with the cash,” she says.
‘Studying by Doing’
The college is affiliated to the Nationwide Institute of Open Education (NIOS).
“At Akshar Faculty, we place college students within the grade ranges that they’re at primarily based on a flair take a look at. So, if a pupil excels in sixth commonplace maths, that’s the place they’ll research. But when they’re extra comfy with Third-standard science, then their focus shall be on that,” Parmita explains.
This method supplies a possibility for older college students who couldn’t attend faculty earlier, maybe resulting from poverty, to catch up and study at their very own tempo, she notes. “This helped us join with these older youngsters very properly too,” she says.
When Yuvraj Kashyap (now 20) joined Akshar Faculty as a pupil again in 2018, he was greatly surprised by the varsity’s distinctive curriculum and charge coverage. “It was a real paradigm shift in each sense,” Yuvraj reminisces in a chat with The Higher India, his eyes gleaming with pleasure.
Yuvraj, now able to take his NIOS board examination subsequent month, recollects his expertise, “The curriculum was a far cry from what I’d skilled in my earlier faculty. They weren’t simply curious about filling our heads with info; they had been devoted to nurturing our holistic progress. And the most effective half is that they didn’t ask for a single rupee in charges.”
One other characteristic of their curriculum is that the varsity focuses on the holistic improvement of the youngsters. “We simply need to guarantee that after they step out of right here, they’re prepared for the world. Now we have a variety of vocational training-based programs for the youngsters to study. We train them carpentry, photo voltaic panel becoming, electrical work, tailoring, gardening, and landscaping,” she says.
Our philosophy is ‘Studying by Doing’ and this curriculum is strictly what we need to do, the couple provides.
Recycling Plastic Into Substantial Items
They’ve additionally arrange a recycling plant on the campus. “The plant recycles as a lot plastic that’s recyclable and converts them into eco-bricks. Our youngsters discover ways to convert plastic into bricks and work within the plant after faculty. We pay them for that too. This fashion they get to study an additional ability,” she says.
The eco-bricks are then utilized in smaller constructions in and across the faculty.
“We’re additionally utilizing a machine from the Netherlands. The machine upcycles the plastic into issues of use. Now we have to place the melted plastic in several moulds and the machine converts it into pots, planters, keyrings, earnings and so forth,” she says.
“There are just a few forms of plastic that we will use round kids and the remainder we ship to different recycling firms,” informs Mazin.
Watching the success of their faculty, the couple determined to develop their curriculum.
“We collaborated with a residential faculty in Delhi for orphans and our curriculum labored efficiently with them. Though we needed to develop it to extra faculties in Delhi, the COVID-19 pandemic put our plans on maintain and we needed to name our crew again to Assam,” she says.
The street forward
In 2021, the couple reached out to extra faculties in Assam and signed an MoU with the state authorities to duplicate their instructional mannequin in 5 authorities faculties. At present, the couple has applied this mannequin in 14 faculties in Assam and are hoping to succeed in 200 extra by the top of 2025.
The couple was contacted by the Assan authorities to help them within the Swachh Bharat Mission.
“They recruited us to contact personal faculties and acquire plastic from them. Multiple lakh college students shall be segregating plastic of their properties, bringing it to their faculty and our crew will acquire it from them. The plastic will then be recycled at our centre, whereas a few of will probably be despatched to different recycling centres within the state,” explains Mazin.
To date, the couple has reached 3,000 college students by means of their faculty and by implementing their curriculum in 14 different faculties, they’ve collected 2,330 plastic bottles and seven,19,700 plastic wrappers in totality.
In case you are curious about their work, you’ll be able to attain them here.
Edited by Padmashree Pande.
