A woman’s battle against illiteracy by Sujata Bagal
Deccan Herald
Bangalore, April 4, 2006

Noor Ayesha chose to step out of traditional confines and wage a war against illiteracy. She started a pre-primary school in her house for the children of her community and believes that education is the only way to independence.

As I turn off of the Jama Masjid Road on to one of the side streets in Illyasnagar in South Bangalore, I come to a big, colourful shamiana that takes up the entire width of the street. At the head of the shamiana is a dais draped with a thin carpet. On the dais are chairs, a rectangular table with two flower vases and a microphone on a long stand.

Off to the left of the dais, past the sound system, its snaking wires and loud speakers, is the gate that leads to Noor Ayesha’s house. The gate opens to a long corridor at the far end of which is the front door that opens to a room about 8 feet by 12 feet that is filled to capacity with people and is buzzing with activity.

Noor Ayesha, petite, reed-thin and bubbling with energy is resplendent in a shimmering green and pink chudidhar. She has a constant stream of guests, some already seated in a molded plastic chairs that dot the front room of the house, others still arriving, removing their slippers at the front door before coming in.

Noor is busy attending to little children, guiding them to a bench in the far corner of the room, getting them to sit. The children are dressed in their best clothes and their faces made up as if for a performance. They sit quietly and patiently and watch the adults.

How it all began

The room itself has a showcase built into the wall of the left of the front door. The showcase is full of children’s notebooks, blocks and puzzles. Number charts, alphabet charts, fruit, vegetable and flower charts hang along the wall facing the front door. A little higher, towards the left of center of the wall, hangs an illustration of Mecca and a chart welcoming everyone. A roll up black board to the center of the wall proclaims that Noor Ayesha’s home is also the Little Lord Pre-Primary English School.

In short, Noor is a foot-soldier in the war against illiteracy in India.

Today, Noor Ayesha and her children are celebrating their school’s Annual School Day.

She started out as an Akshara volunteer in their ‘Community Outreach’ programme in November 2004. She went around from house to house with the search provided by Akshara and urged parents to send their pre-school aged children to her house for a few hours everyday so she could school them

The Success story

For eight months, she ran her pre-school under Akshara banner and received all the necessary teaching materials and a monthly stipend from Akshara. Within a few months, she had the experience and a sufficient number of children in her school for her to contemplate going independent. So she took the training offered by Akshara on how to run a self sustaining Balwadi in April of 2005. From June onwards, she has been running her pre-primary school with the fees she has collected from the families and with some help from her locality Corporator.

Now Noor has 54 children in the age group of two and a half to six years old and she’s hearing from parents who want to send their children to her even earlier. Initially, her language and math classes were conducted only in Urdu. Following numerous requests from parents, she has now hired an English teacher and offers classes in both Urdu and English.

Enabling Noor to accomplish all this within a span of a few months are her family, her neighbourhood and the leadership in her locality.

The success Noor has had not only in starting a Balwadi in her area, but going on to become independent is a sign of the level of demand for education at the pre-primary level. There are no government-run pre-primary schools in Bangalore. So most families who cannot afford private school education end up keeping their children at home until they are old enough to be sent to first grade in the government schools.

Unfortunately, by that time, they are already behind in terms of the things they could have learned in the crucial formative years of their lives. This leads to learning problems in the primary schools and government primary school teachers are overwhelmed by the amount of work necessary to bring the children up to speed.

Noor’s is one of 94 self sustaining Balwadis in Bangalore.

It’s the school’s Annual Day and Noor, who has not summoned up enough courage to go up on stage, is standing on the ground next to the dais, the microphone pulled low to her height and is welcoming her guests and the parents of her school children. She nervously tugs at her duppata willing it to stay around her head, her fingers gripping the microphone and adjusting her duppatta by turn. After every sentence, she turns to the English teacher in her school, who has Noor’s speech ready in her hands. Together, they make it through the welcome speech.

Noor has moved off to the side now, and is organizing her children. She is already intent on the next stage of the programme. This is what the Annual Day is all about.

It’s about how far her children have come in the span of a year, and it’s about showing the parents and the rest of the community why it is important they go to school and stick with it.