An innovative experiment to bring the students back to schools by organising curriculum-based plays and involving them in every stage of production is paying dividends at a school in a predominantly Telugu-speaking area in Kalaburagi. The number of students attending the Kannada Medium Government High School at Jakkanpalli in Sedam taluk has considerably gone up and the retention rate is almost 100 per cent now. The strength of the school is around 60 today and the pass percentage in the SSLC examination is more than 95 per cent.
The man who is responsible for the change is the drama teacher of the school Ashok Totnalli.
“When I was appointed as the drama teacher in the school in 2008, there were hardly any children in the school. Most of the students were Telugu-speaking,” he said. Mr. Totnalli said that initially it was very hard to convince the parents to send their children to the school. The right combination of cultural and academic activity did the trick and the students started evincing interest in attending the classes. Now, more than 65 per cent of the students in the school at Jakkanpalli are girls and the retention rate is 100 per cent.
To begin with he started encouraging the students to stage plays based on the subjects and slowly made them to produce plays based on popular stories. He encouraged them to stage their plays in front of the villagers in the evenings during the weekend. “This gave them the much-needed confidence. The plays performed by the students of my school won the first prize at the State-level Pratibha Karanji organised by the State government in 2012-13 and second prize at the State-level Pratibha Karanji in 2013-14. The school team had also won the third prize in the State-level science drama contest organised by the Education Department this year,” he said.
The students of the school have formed a cultural group called ‘Naanu Nammuru’. Their interest in cultural activities have also helped in reviving the age-old folk art of Doddatta in Jakkanpalli.
