Working professionals spendind Saturdays at govt schools to teach for free

BENGALURU: For Vadiraj Deshpande, a city-based techie, Saturdays meant doing some household chores and buying groceries. But this routine is set to change as he will spend Saturdays in government schools teaching science for free.

Like him, many working professionals in Bengaluru have signed up to spend Saturdays from 7am to 12pm ­ at a government school of their choice under the Education department's novel Shaalege Banni Shanivara (Come to School on Saturday) programme.

"This will be a right way to spend my Saturdays," said Deshpande, 36, a software development manager with an American multinational."My mother is a teacher herself, and this programme will allow me to fulfill my long time desire to teach and give back to society." He has enrolled himself to teach at three state-run schools in Malleswaram where he lives.



Launched earlier this month, the programme aims to push community participation in government schools that are otherwise reeling with shortage of infrastructure and teachers good at certain subjects. Headmasters will handhold volunteers by explaining the syllabus to them and how they could run the classes. "I have opted to teach mathematics at Sahakari Vidya Kendra in Padmanabhanagar. Private schools don't need a programme like this, because kids get a good support system at home unlike in government schools," said Vishwanath HR, 61, who retired as an officer from the Union Bank of India little over a year ago.

Based on their convenience, some volunteers have opted to teach in private schools run on government grants. "We are trying to get peo ple to opt for more and more government schools, where the need really beckons," said S Jayakumar, director of the Department of State Education Research and Training. To address teacher shortage this year, 73 guest lecturers will be hired to fill up vacancies in Bengaluru's government schools. "The way I see it," Deshpande said: "A lot of skilled people will come back to government schools to teach, and the programme could improve enrollment in these schools. It's a big win-win situation." Suresh Ramakrishna, a software engineer at Accenture, has registered with the department to teach computers at a Staterun lower primary school in Gonehalli near Chintamani, about 80 kms from Bengaluru. "This school has only six kids. It has no facilities because of which kids join convents," Suresh said."That's when I decided to do contribute in whatever way I can. The only thing government schools lack is encouragement."