Farmers Movement Archive

Rakesh Tikait turns a teacher for the day;  teaches makeshift school at Ghazipur

Farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, who has given a new lease of life to farmers agitation with a string of ‘mahapanchayats’ across Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, on Monday turned a teacher to the children attending a school running on the agitation site at Ghazipur. He taught a group of children who had been assembling at the Ghazipur agitation site and also asked them what they had learnt all this while, according to BKU’s Dharmendra MalikA social activist from Uttar Pradesh, Nirdesh Singh, has been running the Savitri Bai Phule School for poor children, mostly rag pickers from neighbouring localities, in one of the tents at the site. Later, other volunteers joined in to teach the poor kids, majority of who belong to the localities around the Ghazipur border and used to collect plastic wastes from the protest site.Tikait, who has been camping at Ghazipur since past two and a half months, not only taught the children  alphabets and numbers but also took stock of what they had learnt in the month-and-a-half that the school has been operating, Malik said“Nirdesh didi is running the school since January. Around 90 children from neighbouring colonies are registered in the school run in two shifts,” said Malik. Tikiat also slammed the government for “lack of educational facilities” for poor children.“The children of rich study in air-conditioned schools and those of poor do not even have ‘taat patti’ schools (basic facilities)” Tikait said, praising the efforts of those involved in the good work at Ghazipur protest site.

The Tribune

2021-02-15

New Delhi