Today we visited Shree Buddha School in Godawari Municipality about 45 minutes drive away. It is a big school with over 750 pupils and growing all the time. When we visited last year the principal, Prempati Joshi, had not long been appointed. He has certainly been busy in his first year ccntinuing to grow school numbers and introducing some new initiatives. He is so enthusiastic when talking about his school. As he gave us a personal tour of the school he proudly showed us his idea to introduce classes for local women, people who can not read and write, a mix of ages from middle aged to very senior adults. They are operating three classes and the local government have funded a specialist teacher. They have been going for three months now and good progress is being made. The classes are advertised locally for anyone to apply. His thinking as he explained to us is that by educating the adults it will encourage them to get their children educated. As we were shown they are basically starting from scratch, firstly learning their alphabet, and gradually progressing.
We continued our comprehensive tour of the school, all classes from ECD (early child development nursery) to sixth form. As it was nearing tiffin time we went to the kitchen to see the food being prepared. Kate and I were given bowls and plates of what was being served today. Some soya beans, some spicy cauliflower and then some rice pudding.
We finished our visit in the principal’s office with a nice cup of chai and where we were given their proposal list of projects that they would like us to fund and thanked us profusely for the items that we funded last year. As we left the children were just starting their tiffin in the outside yard so we were able to see them enjoying their meal. It was a lovely end to an excellent visit. The school is a credit to the principal and it was so nice to see the progression since my visit last year.