Ivan Dias andu00a0Romana Sheikh

Beyond duty

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Kanika Saraf

For Kanika Saraf, another TFI Fellow at Jaafri's School, Govandi, the day doesn't end too. She's on call for her students 24X7. "Once a child called me late at night to say she was being beaten up," she says. The problem is that the parents don't consider education to be of any value. "Parents believe that once they've sent kids to school, their responsibility ends," says Saraf. But in the few months that she's been there, the 21-year-old has managed to bring about a change in attitude among the staff and principal. "They're more open to our methods of teaching which involve an incentive." Saraf had promised that those who scored high marks in mathematics would be treated to pizzas at her home. "Ten students are coming over next week," she says.

In the four months that Sheikh and Dias have been teaching, they've reduced the number of fights between students. In a bid to make 'school' a less daunting place, students are given more freedom. "We don't carry threatening scales. We give them high-fives after school. Our students aren't afraid of us," explains Dias.

Life changing experience
Sheikh says that being a Fellow is a life-transforming experience: "Integrity matters a lot more. You can't wake up one morning and say, I'm too lazy to go to work." For Dias, it's taxing, but very satisfying. Saraf says, "The way I live, think, the way I perceive life, even money, has changed. It felt like an Utopian concept initially, this whole education equity, but it's possible. We are addressing a real issue here."u00a0

Class 2 students from Maharashtra High School 2
pics/Nimesh Dave