S. Srija, a class VI student of ZP High School, Penamakuru village in Krishna district, mostly loves to read the chapter four of social studies textbook, both at home and at school. “I can read what I see with my naked eyes in the everyday life in my village,” Ms. Srija told The Hindu with eagerness to display the pages of her favourite lesson – ‘Penamakuru – A village in Krishna Delta’ – in the social studies textbook-VI. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT-AP), has included the story of Penamakuru village in the series of ‘Diversity on the Earth’.
It narrates the changes witnessed in the agrarian village on several fronts – agriculture, rural economy, modes of ownership of land, livelihood options and diversification of crops on the deltaic land. The SCERT syllabus with the village story was prescribed from the academic year 2012-13 both for Telugu and Enlgish medium, and is being distributed across the state.
“I earned recognition in the school as my grandfather and grandmother, bamboo craft artisans, appeared in the lesson in the category of professions existing in our village,” says a class VI student J. Siva Nagaraju. “A drastic change in our lives over the years has made our village one of the ideal villages in the Krishna delta. There was unpredictable changes in crop pattern and growth in agriculture-allied sectors and food production,” Penamakuru Sarpanch (1995-2002) Mareedu Nageswara Rao told The Hindu . The lesson compiled with 14 pictures of the village on various aspects of life and geographical conditions including village map tells a complete tale of all round development of an agrarian pocket in Andhra Pradesh.
One of the invisible developments registered here was stunning growth in the population density in recent years. The NCERT had incorporated several questions meant for students to learn from their parents and this method of learning drew interest from the students of the village, where they can have a lively account.
