Interview at Little Angels School

INTERVIEWER (Q1): Ok, well, would you all please introduce yourselves

SYED FIRDAUS (A1a): Syed Firdaus.

MUKHTAR ALAM (A1b): Mukhtar Alam.

PRABHUNATH SINGH (A1c): Prabhunath Singh.

INTERVIEWER (Q2): And what do you all do?

SYED FIRDAUS (A2a): We teach students in this very school.

MUKHTAR ALAM (A2b): Teaching is our job.

INTERVIEWER (Q3): How many grades are there in this school.

SYED FIRDAUS (A3): It goes from nursery school to the tenth grade.

INTERVIEWER (Q4): Ok, and how many kids do you teach.

SYED FIRDAUS (A4): Five hundred.

INTERVIEWER (Q5): Hindi medium or English medium?

SYED FIRDAUS (A5) Hindi medium but instruction is also done in English.

INTERVIEWER (Q6): So please tell us something about the school.

SYED FIRDAUS (A6) It began in 94-at that time they were very few students but gradually we've moved things forward, we've really put in a lot of effort to move it forward. And now there are five hundred students.

INTERVIWER (Q7): Who decided that there needed to be a school here.

SYED FIRDAUS (A7): I did

INTERVIEWER (Q8): How, what did you see?

SYED FIRDAUS (A8): There were schools being run here, and they're still here today-two, three private schools. But the kids who were going didn't have any uniforms, it didn't look good. I thought there needed to be uniforms, everyone needs to have uniforms.

INTERVIEWER (Q9): So what difficulties did you all experience in starting the school.

SYED FIRDAUS (A9): No problems, nothing.

INTERVIEWER (Q10): So, you just started the school and the kids started showing up?

SYED FIRDAUS (A10): We're locals, you know, so everyone knows us.

INTERVIEWER (Q11): So what do you all teach?

SYED FIRDAUS (A11a): We teach English and whatever other subjects are appropriate. For the lower grades there's Hindi, Urdu, Science.

MUKHTAR ALAM (A11b): There are other teachers too.

INTERVIEWER (Q12): And history?

MUKHTAR ALAM (A12): Everyone teaches history-there's history, science, geography, civics, Persian, Sanskrit, Urdu, English and Mathematics.

INTERVIEWER (Q13): Ok, this is a rural school, so how do you approach teaching.

SYED FIRDAUS (A13): It's not especially challenging-we have to work hard and if you work hard then things will move forward, it depends upon our hard work-the students study as hard as we work, if we work hard, the result will be good.

INTERVIEWER (Q14): Why do students come to a private school when government schools are free, right-what's the difference between private and government schools.

MUKHTAR ALAM (A14): In a government school, teachers get their salary from the government. Because they're getting money from the government, they can't really do their jobs properly. In a private school, you have to teach privately-if you want your money you have to teach, and work harder.

INTERVIEWER (Q15): Do you all need to go for namaz?

SYED FIRDAUS (A15): It's not time yet.

INTERVIEWER (Q16): Ok then how many students do you have per class.

MUKHTAR ALAM (A16): Thirty five.

INTERVIEWER (Q17): Well teaching must be difficult then because that's a lot of students.

PRABHUNATH SINGH (A17):Well, there are smaller classes, in the tenth grade there isn't much of a problem-it's not even a problem if the number of students goes higher than that.

INTERVIEWER (Q18): How much do you charge?

MUKHTAR ALAM (A18a): There are different rates depending upon the grade.

PRABHUNATH SINGH (A18b):For example, for the tenth grade its 70 rupees.

INTERVIEWER (Q19): For the whole year?

SYED FIRDAUS (A19): No per month, for the lower grades its 35-40 rupees. It depends.

INTERVIEWER (Q20): Are there scholarships for poor students.

SYED FIRDAUS (A20a): No, in a private school, there's nothing like that.

SYED FIRDAUS (A20b): They have different arrangements.

SYED FIRDAUS (A20c): Taking the money, they just study on their own. They get scholarships from government schools.

INTERVIEWER (Q21): Ok you were saying that you have to do a lot of work. So what's your manner of teaching-what your style? Meaning, in class do you give lectures, pose questions.

MJUKHTAR ALAM (A21a): Well we do give some lectures actually, there's explanation and also "practical work" from textbooks used in class. We have the students work in class and they're also given homework-we say, "do the homework and return it." Lecturing really doesn't get you very far.

SYED FIRDAUS (A21b): For example, students are taught in such a way, by explanation and questioning, that they're able to provide the answers easily and always remember the answers when asked so that during an exam, at exam time, they're able to provide solutions. This is the way students are taught. They're taught with good textbooks.

INTERVIEWER (Q22): You said that students come to learn how to read and write-in this area are there still illiterate families?

SYED FIRDAUS (A22a): A while back there weren't any literate families at all, for this very reason people give a lot of attention to their studies so that they can learn how to read and write. My whole family isn't literate for example-studying doesn't necessarily mean comprehension. Some people just go off here and there but gradually they'll understand and come back to the village and take a little time to study.

MUKHTAR ALAM(A22b): As far as poverty is concerned, the first thing that the poor want is for their poverty to go away. After this they think like this: let's save our money. Then they find that while this doesn't give them everything in the world, it does lessen a lot of problems. With money, they get education-for this reason, people think about money first, and then give their attention to education.

INTERVIEWER (Q23): In times past, did poor people think that education was necessary?

MUKHTAR ALAM (A23a): Now they're understanding that education is necessary-before they didn't think that way but now they're getting the message and sending their children. Slowly, gradually, they're beginning to send their kids. Before they didn't understand education as being absolutely necessary.

SYED FIRDAUS (A22b): The mentality is this-they're trying as hard as they can to avoid having to work in the fields. Now, working the fields is really hard work-back breaking work, it's not right. The situation here is that in addition to the manual labor, there's no electricity from morning to night and in this situation people really want to get away from working the fields so they're trying to start businesses, they're studying. In any case, no one wants to have to go to the fields to work-it depends upon them whether or not they get out.