Applying the adage, ‘catch them young’, Rajasthan’s Dungarpur district administration has taken to encouraging school children in primary and upper primary sections to speak on a topic from their books, in order to develop their oratory skills. This is being done under a special programme named ‘Mission Bulandin: Padhega Dungarpur, Bolega Dungarpur’. First, the children are given books and later they are asked to speak on a topic from them. Realising the importance of good communication skills in today’s times, the shy ones are being encouraged more to start speaking in class.
The programme was the brainchild of Collector Shubham Chaudhary. During a conversation with Indian Masterminds, Ms. Chaudhary spoke about the reason behind the initiative and steps taken to ensure the sustainability of the programme.
ENSURING TWO WAY COMMUNICATION IN CLASS
Ms. Chaudhary said, “Most students hardly speak up or express their views in class. Mostly the communication in class is one way – teacher to the student. Since they don’t ask questions or remove their doubts, their performance gets deteriorated in all subjects.”
She also pointed out that today every job requires a personal interview. One can’t skip this part. So, such a programme is important to ingrain the seed of public speaking and communication in the students from the early age itself.
COMPULSORY ISSUANCE OF BOOKS TO STUDENTS
Ms. Chaudhary and her team has formulated a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for this mission which has two parts. According to the SOP, each student must get books from the library. School development and other funds are being used to stock up the library with age-appropriate books. Since the programme has been started in primary and upper primary schools, so the libraries must have story books with pictures that can arouse the interest of the students.
Till now, thousands of students from about 800 government schools are part of this programme.
EDUCATORS BEING TRAINED
The second part of the mission is the most important one. Ms. Chaudhary explained: “Teachers, Principals and CDOs have been given basic training to conduct this mission. Every class teacher has to dedicate at least ten minutes in a day for this programme, so that each student can get an opportunity to speak for about 3-4 minutes in two weeks. Teachers can also manage the time according to the volume of class, but each student’s turn should come.”
EQUAL OPPORUTNITIES FOR ALL
Usually, the students who perform good academically are pushed towards other co-curricular activities, too. Here, the mission focuses on allowing equal opportunity to each child to come and speak.
Ms. Chaudhary also said that the students should be encouraged to speak about the book they have been issued for the week, but if they haven’t read it, they should be suggested some other general topic to speak on. “Our aim is to develop the habit of reading and speaking. Children should be encouraged to read as well as speak. Since it is just the initial phase, we haven’t issued any grading system because we want this programme to be fun for the children, not another academical burden.”
To ensure the sustainability of the programme, the administration has also prescribed certain formats, which include maintaining a register. The best speaker’s picture is also to be flashed on the notice board which could encourage others as well.
MONTHLY MEETING TO TAKE STOCK
Every month, a meeting is also being held by the District Collector with education officer, block level officers, principals and staffs from schools. The main agenda of these meetings is to be examine how many students are reading the books and how many are speaking. The district administration is also planning to organise block and district level competitions in the end of two months of this programme. Ms. Chaudhary hopes that all these steps will help in multi-dimensional growth of the students, and they will come out as much more confident personalities.
