We note with grief twin developments in recent school educational reports. One, the rise in student suicides. The other, the intimidation of teachers in the face of student defiance. Parents and teachers are bewildered. There are reasons that seem to render the class teacher redundant, and when the student realizes that, respect for the teacher diminishes. Students experience a new power, and it is unrealistic to expect them to react any differently. Also, they are perversely interested in the attention given to peers’ suicides, and “copy-cat” self-violence is psychologically not surprising. SERVE recognizes that this deplorable situation needs addressing. We offer our willingness in that context.
When in 1996 Abbas Bengali, Rajesh Arora and Brendan MacCarthaigh had seen Alor Pathe – a Bengali dance-drama by Br Saju sj , on the life of an Irish 19th century saint, Edmund Rice, who transformed his country by a new approach to education – they were inspired collectively to do something similar for India.They started the NGO SERVE Students’ Empowerment, Rights & Vision through Education. Save Students, Save India summarises their inspiration. In practice, every child going to school smiling, every child returning home smiling, not every child going to school in tears, every child coming home in smiles .
Edmund Rice, SERVE’s Primary Patron – 2012 is the 250th anniversary of his birth.”
Since then SERVE has provoked much re-thinking of education in the country, especially in Kolkata schools. Grieved by the discovery that children suffer a lot in both mind and even body in our classrooms, that in fact for several years India has been the suicide ‘topper’ of the world, and more recently that Kolkata is the student suicide capital, they have used every medium available to challenge parents, teachers, Principals and even the Government towards an alternative.
ON FEB 25-26 2012 THE SERVE GROUP (↑) MET IN DHYAN ASHRAM .Cresecent: L > R: Rajesh Arora, Hamza Malkani, Joe Chiramal, Abbas Bengali, Arunima Sengupta, Brendan MacCarthaigh. Front: Sonia Bhattacharyya . Pic-date wrong!
They have even provided such alternatives. We were introduced to our succeeding West Bengal Governors over the years – Viren J Shah and Gopal Krishna Gandhi – and are currently organizing a meeting with the present incumbent. They were more than enthusiastic about what we are attempting, and spoke about us publicly on other occasions.
The pages ahead will spell out what we have attempted, and what has changed because of what we did.
