On the 15th of July 2022 IGIB’s outreach team reached a school in the deep rural interior of the biggest state in India, Uttar Pradesh. Our aim was to ignite scientific curiosity and temperament in young minds and provide a glimpse of ‘actual’ laboratory research to school students using our customised “lab@Home” kit. This was our first rural visit for outreach and we had many preconceived notions on how our adventure is going to turn out. Suffice it to say, the verdant green fields that bordered the road from the railway station to the school, a balm to the soul, and the clean and well-kept village cured us of our prejudices. At the school, we were received warmly by the principal at the school gate as if we were dignitaries. As we walked to the classrooms, the thorough city-bred among us were amazed at an otherwise ordinary sight, the large number of people riding bicycles in the street and a line of these bicycles parked in the school premises etc.
When we met the students, the first thing that struck us was the disproportionate number; almost 80% of 1200 or so students were girls. We were told that most of the boys from the area go to a bigger school in the nearby town, a travel that the girl students are discouraged from undertaking. Of course even ‘nearby’ meant bicycling a distance of 7-8 kilometres, since most were from middle class families for whom the annual tuition fee of Rs. 4,500 constituted a month’s income. The students participate in many family responsibilities like farm work, cattle grazing and other household chores after school and they study after dinner.
The school had all civic amenities including even a CCTV network for monitoring student movements. The principal informed us that library and laboratory facilities are going to be developed soon. The school teachers focus on rote learning and the effect was obvious when students of class IV were able to fluently recite multiplication tables up to 20. The students however were very sharp, alert and full of expectations. We demonstrated how to isolate DNA from personal spit samples using the individual kits we provided. Some of the students exhibited fantastic camaraderie by helping each other with the experiment. Eventually, everyone had a tube of their own DNA. It was difficult to tell who was more excited by it, us or them. The kids were very enthusiastic about learning and we were inundated by questions in every class we went to.
We learned that they all had big dreams and ambitions. Many of the girls had plans to join the police force when they grow up. As we walked out of the school, we were all beaming, warmed by the love and hospitality of the students, teachers and other staff. We came back with renewed energy to engage more with rural schools, where one visit from us could spark such excitement and fire.
Neelanjana Bhattacharyya
Neelanjana Bhattacharyya is a jack(or jill) of all trades..and master of a few. She loves illustrating, designing, singing and relishing life. In recent times she has put her skills to use by contributing to the science outreach efforts of CSIR-IGIB.