For more than three years, Mohmmad Ashraf Dar, a general line government teacher at Government Primary School, Heffin southern Shopian is visitinghome to home to enroll the never-enrolled kids to the school. With his efforts, the enrollment of children to the school has increased multifold.
41-year-old Dar says that he never budge from his endeavor to enroll the never enrolled students and persuade others to get enrolled in a government-run-institution.
Dar said that he has adopted various approaches and methods to persuade the students and never enrolled kids of the Heff village of south Kashmir’s Shopian district to get enrolled in the school.
“I mostly choose a Play-Way method to persuade the students of village to get admissions in Government Primary School (GPS). I have been visiting various homes in the village and persuaded parents to get their wards admitted in GPS,” Dar said.
GPS is situated away from the locality and despite that Dar was successful to increase the roll of students to more than 60 .
The general line teacher of the 2009 batch, Dar said, “First of all I try to create a friendly environment to all of the students and parents which according to me is one of the best parameters one can adopt to encourage the students to get enrolled.”
Dar said that he believes that every work and experiment begins at home.
“Before encouraging the students of the locality and adjacent areas to get enrolled in the school, I first enrolled my wards in this school. Not only my wards, but the kids of all of our relatives,” he said.
He also said that one of his brother-in-laws is a KAS officer. “I even enrolled his wards in the government school I am teaching in.”
“In 2019, the enrollment of the students in the school was in single digits but in the past three years, I have successfully made it to 61,” Dar said.
The school is more than a mile away from the habitation and according to Dar that was one of the major challenges for them to get students enrolled in this school.
“One of the students who was studying in a Private school got admitted in GPS Heff and the students is now walking more than a mile to study in our school,” he said.
Stating the experience of enrolling one of the never enrolled students Sajad Ahmad (Name Changed), Dar said he chased him for more than two years.
He said, “I used to visit his home every day and initially I tried to make him a friend, I used to give him sweets, chocolates and other stuff but he never agrees to study.”
However, Dar never gave up on him and after two years he finally persuaded him to get enrolled in the school.
The dedication of Dar does not end there.He says that the government school always chases their students to ensure their consistency.
“If any of the students enrolled in our school remains absent for more than a day, I will visit their homes to enquire about the matter,” he said.
Dar further says that he has also persuaded those persons who had crossed their age bar of schooling.
“In Heff village, there were some students with intellectual disabilities. I also visited their home and enrolled them to school. I gave them special treatment and never made them feel like they are specially abled,” he said.
Dar said that during the winter vacations, three teachers of GPS Heff have been providing free tuition to its students.
“Students in my schools belong from the middle class families and I always try my best to get them quality education,” he said.
