One cannot build a great building on a weak foundation, with this thought in mind 2012 batch IPS officer Vaibhav Tiwari set afoot a plan that would blossom confidence in the minds of over 2,000 students who live in the Naxal-affected tribal belt of West Bengal.
Despite not much help from the state government the Ankur Initiative planned by the Bankura Police SP will one day surely sprout that faith in every child in the district’s poor belt that will one day drive away the “fear of English and Mathematics” from their minds.
Mr Tiwari’s plan is to provide Maths and English classes to primary school students.
For this initiative, the police have chosen 2,100 students from 46 primary schools under 23 police stations in the district.
Almost 70 percent of these children belong to the tribal community. Police personnel and 124 civic volunteers have been identified, who will teach these children, after their classes.
Speaking to Indian Masterminds, Mr. Tiwari said “Ankur Initiative is for those poor children whose foundation is weak. Fear of English and Mathematics in children is very common. This initiative intends to help the kids to overcome this fear.”
For this, free additional coaching classes in Maths and English will be started after school hours in different places in the district. “We are taking help of NGOs for this initiative,” he added.
ANKUR TO ANCHOR
The coaching classes to be provided under the project will use international standards of pedagogy and will be in addition to regular school classes. Ankur will be completely voluntary. Many teachers, policemen and civic volunteers are involved in this project. They especially plan to reach out to all the Gram Panchayats within five police station areas in the forest part of the district.
STEP BY STEP
Some community centers have also been identified where the classes will be conducted. Children from classes 1 to 5 will be taught. This project will run for one year.
Training of civic volunteers and police officials has already been completed. An NGO, named, Nanritam has already been roped in for imparting the necessary training to the civic volunteers.
There has been some hue and cry over the selection of civic volunteers for this project. The civic volunteers are temporary staff working in close coordination with the police.
Talking about this, Mr Tiwari said, “We have selected only those, whose educational qualification is very good and they themselves were interested in teaching.”
To supervise them, a police officer has been kept in every police station. And a DSP rank officer will supervise all of them at the district level, he added.
He also clarified that this is not a community policing initiative but rather a genuine endeavour to aid young minds to build their best foundation.
IMPLEMENTATION
The Bankura District Police plans to reach out to all the gram panchayats of 23 police stations that are chosen in the first phase of the Ankur Initiative.
Police are taking permission from guardians at every step. Even the volunteers have been selected police station-wise only. So that, neither the children nor them have to travel much.
The site for the classes will be chosen after consultation with the parents, who will be joining the initiative.
Mr. Vaibhav Tiwari said, “Earlier, we had sought permission from the schools to teach the children in the empty classes after school got over. But as that consent has not yet come through from the state education department, so now the children will be taught in their nearby police stations near the schools, or in the panchayat building.”
THE IDEA
How did he get the idea of this initiative? Mr. Vaibhav said, “There are many initiatives for older children. Even police are running coaching classes for competitive exams in many tribal areas here. People also pay much attention to their children in the secondary grades.”
But for primary children, there is not much awareness, especially in rural areas. “These small children’s educational foundation once weakened, they could face a lot of problems growing up. That’s how the idea came to me.”
He hopes a year of Ankur will do wonders for these kids.
