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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Poverty set aside for village computer by Anirban Choudhury

Poverty set aside for village computer by Anirban Choudhury

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published Published on Jul 29, 2011   modified Modified on Jul 29, 2011

Most of the residents of Ambadipa are farmers and almost all their monthly earnings are less than Rs 2,000. But that did not stop them from bringing technology to their village for their children.

All the residents of this little hamlet tucked away in a Dooars block had contributed to buy the only computer that Ambadipa now boasts of.

“It was difficult for us to pay, but we did it. All the 500 families contributed money, whether it was Rs 20 or Rs 10. For one year, we collected the amount,” said Dasarath Oraon, the president of the village education committee.

The local primary school is now in charge of the computer that had been assembled for Rs 15,000.

Classes started today. Five students from Class IV will be attending the hour-long sessions after regular school hours. The teachers of the primary school have promised to conduct classes five days a week so that all 25 students of the batch can get a turn every week.

The teachers — there are four of them — too, had contributed for the computer. In fact, they were the ones who had set the example.

The school authorities were the first to propose that a computer should be installed, an idea that was initially rejected by the villagers as impossible.

“We had to work hard to make the guardians realise the importance of computers. It took some time to convince them and then some more time to get the money ready. Finally the president of the village education committee appreciated our efforts and encouraged the villagers. Yesterday, we installed the assembled computer in a new room. Classes started today,” said Kalipada Das, the headmaster of the school in Jalpaiguri’s Dhupguri block, 75km from here.

The primary school has 117 students and the authorities have plans to train the children of other classes too.

“We want to introduce computer from Class II but for that, we need more computers. There is no café or school here where the children can learn. And the villagers also are very poor. Once the students learn computer here they will be able to use it in high schools smoothly. Our aim is to update our students. At the end of primary school, the students should know what a computer is and how it operates,” said headmaster Das.

Oraon recounted how difficult it was at first to collect the money. “You must understand that people here hardly get two square meals a day. At first, they were reluctant to part with money for something that they thought was a luxury. The teachers played an important role in convincing me and the others about how essential a computer is. We want our children to learn, to be educated,” he said. Both Oraon and Das went around collecting contributions.

The villagers had also kept aside money from the Durga Puja funds.

Khulla Majhi, Bindia Majhi and Sajen Oraon are among the first batch of students supposed to attend the computer class after school today. Khulla said he was so excited that he had come to school earlier than usual. During the lunch break, the computer room was full of visitors but classes were supposed to start only after 3pm.

“They will be taught what a desktop is, its functions. They will be told about the mouse, the screen, one or two softwares. The children are very excited,” said the headmaster. “We will teach them to type on the keyboard, use the paint brush— little things that will be of interest to them as well as make them computer literate.”

He said there was no Internet connection yet.

The Telegraph, 29 July, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110729/jsp/frontpage/story_14305036.jsp


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