Page 376 - Final Draft_Casestudies_17June2019_new

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UTTARAKHAND

Umesh Chandra Pandey
GHS Paudhar, Block-Lamgara
Almora, Uttrakhand
Email id: umeshchandrapandeya47@rediff.com

Abstract

The school was facing challenges such as low attendance and disinterest of students. The school
head and his team decided to establish good relations with students. The school worked with
students on improving their writing, speaking and calculation skills, encouraged students to ask
their doubts and to inculcate scientific temperament.

For all round development of student‘s different types of activities and contests are organized, such
as Science quiz, Mathematics contest, speedy calculation contests, English or Hindi essay contest,
drawing, map reading and essay contest.

Socio-Cultural Context of the School

In Uttarakhand GHS Paudhar (established in 2006) is 26 km away from Almora on the way to Lamgara. It
is a tiny village where residents could hardly earn their livelihood by agriculture, animal husbandry or
mason work. Most of the people come in below poverty line. Every family has at least 5 or 6 members.
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Most of the parents are illiterate or educated up to class 5 or 6 . People are orthodox and have
association with nature. Nearest hospital is 12 kms far from here. They speak Kumauni and Hindi. The
basic challenge in their life is to earn education and satisfactory livelihood.

In Sep 2016 when I joined at GHS Paudhar as a Principal, it was suffering from problem of low
attendance and students were looking less enthusiastic towards study. Most of the students were in trouble
when dealing with simple mathematical operations. Way to school was in broken situation, the roof was
dripping in the rain, and a part of prayer ground was dusty. Reducing garbage was also a challenge. After
interval students were losing the enjoyment of learning.

Efforts Initiated or the Process of Transformation

I realized that physical development of infrastructure will happen gradually but first we should focus on
improving academic environment. So first I decided to establish good relation with my staff then I started
to make a good connection with students. I tried to make them fearless and encourage them to ask their
general doubts in prayer. I and my staff started to give answers of their queries. It was a wonderful
experiment; it helped us to make our closeness with students.
Now I tried to ensure that no time of students in school should go waste. So when teachers were engaged
in doing some important work or in leave I try to utilize their time by taking their common class as telling
them about Periodic Table or some chapters of science or telling them doing simple mathematical

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