Page 266 - Final Draft_Casestudies_17June2019_new

[DRAFT]

Phuchungla Bhutia
Government Junior High School, Sajong, Sikkim
Email id: greenphuchungla@gmail.com

Abstract

A staff meeting was called upon in the beginning of the session where the team
identified challenges and problems of the school. Once the problems were identified,
the staffs were encouraged to come up with innovative ideas and share it. It was
decided to make three groups to take up three different challenges. After much
discussion and brainstorming it was decided to take up three major challenges for the
session 2018-19, namely-Improving spoken English of students- a group of five
teachers were assigned for improving the spoken English of students of classes 3 to 8;
mathematical table recitation up to 20- for this three teachers were engaged, worked
with students to recite mathematical tables during zero hours and development of
school kitchen garden – with the contribution of biodegradable vegetable peels and
waste collected from students, finally were able to cultivate cauliflower and spinach in
plastic bags at school. The school head wants to develop the entire village as a learning
centre by building strong and productive school-community relations.

Socio-Cultural Context of the School

(School building and students) (Map of Sajong Village)

Government Junior High School, Sajong is located in a village named Sajong which comes from
Sikkimese Bhutia language literally meaning ―the land facing the east direction‖. It falls under
Budang-Kameray GPU. The approximate population of Sajong is around 600 with a mixed
population of Sikkimese Bhutias and Nepalis of Sikkimese origin.

Majority of the population are government servants excluding few families who are engaged in
farming. So financially they can be assumed to be sound.

Although, the Sikkimese Bhutia which belong to Scheduled Tribe category speaks their native
language (Lhokey) the common lingua-franca remains Sikkimese Nepali.

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