Written by Suraj Kumar—Project Manager, India

For eighteen months, we have been working very closely with the people of Mewat in rural Haryana on improving schools and quality of education. In these areas, the literacy rate for women is around 4%. Many believe the problem lies in parents’ poor attitudes towards education. However, our experience is that most parents understand the value of education and encourage their children to go to school.

In a school playground at Jarali village, I recently stopped to talk with a school principal and some teachers as I was passing by. They told me how difficult it was to get students’ parents to cooperate with them to improve their children’s education experience. As an example, they told me about a parent that dumped leftover construction materials on school grounds. They claimed that they could not convince parents to cooperate in keeping the school areas rubbish-free. When I asked if we could meet with the parents, the principal and teachers agreed and immediately sent the children home.

Within five to ten minutes, no less than fifty parents arrived for an impromptu meeting! The first to arrive was a very elderly, totally blind man with his two grandchildren. I was totally unprepared for this sight! Here was a seventy-year-old man who has never been able to read due to his disability, coming to a meeting concerning the literacy of his grandchildren — a gift he never had!!

As usual, I found that all the parents were eager to state their case and give their comments. They expressed their views of the situation and complained about the difficulties they face sending their children to school in its current practice. We all mutually agreed upon the solution: parents and teachers need to meet more regularly to discuss their ideas and differences.

After this exchange, I reflected on how much was achieved by simply challenging the assumption that parents from rural and low-income communities are not interested in issues concerning their children’s education, or cooperative in communicating about it. We found yet again, these assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth!

Filed under: Education, Uncategorized, lotus outreach on January 8th, 2009