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Education for all: KMC to start 'Ananda Gari' to reach out to children in slums

Education for all: KMC to start Ananda Gari to reach out to children in slums
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Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is launching a new initiative 'Ananda Gari' (Fun Vehicle) which will travel in different wards in the city reaching out to children with basic education. The vehicle will mostly cover the slum areas in the city where there is a tendency of not going to schools.

"The childhood has been among the worst affected due to Covid pandemic. Children particularly those hailing from the slum areas have not learnt the basics of education with schools remaining closed. The 'Ananda Gari' will have giant screens to make the children learn the basic of education like identification of letters in Bengali and English and numbers in Mathematics etc," Sandipan Saha, Member Mayor in Council (Education) said.

The pilot project will start from Monday when 'Ananda Gari' will travel to a place near the Kacharipara Harijan School in Dhapa area. The school is among the 263 schools in the city under the aegis of KMC.

Gradually, the civic body will be rolling out more such vehicles in the city.

Schools right from the primary to the higher secondary level has opened up from Wednesday after a gap of nearly two years.

The overall attendance of students at the primary level has been over 73 per cent across the state. However, it has been noticed that the turn out of students in KMC schools has not been as desired.

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER, West Bengal) that was launched recently has pointed out that, during the pandemic period, 90 per cent of the students have enrolled themselves in the school, but the reading level dropped below 10 per cent.

Students of the first and second standard, are facing the most challenging threat as they could not go to the Anganwadi centres due to overcrowding, the report states.

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