Classrooms in government schools of Alanganallur, Vadipatti and Madurai West blocks will no more reverberate with cries of ‘ ullen ayya ’ or ‘ ullen amma ’ (present sir or madam)’ to mark student attendance.
Under a novel initiative by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), the children will instead say ‘OD’ (Open Defecation) or ‘ODF’ (Open Defecation Free) to indicate whether they used a toilet or not that morning.
As V. Ezhilvizhi, teacher of Class 7B at the Government Higher Secondary School (GHSS) in Kondayampatti village, starts to take the rolls on Wednesday morning, two students mark the attendance in a chart using a red pen for OD and a green pen for ODF.
The initiative, aimed at pushing the children and through them their families to construct and use toilets, appears to be already reaping benefits.
S. Murugan, Headmaster of the Kondayampatti school where the initiative was launched this week, said 279 students, or roughly 60 per cent of the total strength, had marked their attendance with OD on Monday. “However, the count came down to 231 on Wednesday,” he said. Many students, though they had toilets at home, were not using them — until now.
“Only my sister and mother used the toilet. I, my brother and father did not,” said V. Nivas, a Class 9 student. “But it is awkward to get up and say OD when many of my classmates say ODF. So I used the toilet for the first time today,” he said.
“This is precisely the response we wanted,” said B. Rohini Ramdas, Additional Collector and Project Officer (DRDA), who came up with the idea. “We can distribute a thousand pamphlets or conduct a hundred rallies to create awareness, but people may not take them seriously. On the other hand, if the children go home and tell their parents that they are ashamed to let their classmates know they defecated in the open, that will be difficult to ignore,” Ms. Rohini said.
The initiative has pushed many families to begin construction of toilets. With the children driving the change, work is proceeding on a war footing in Kondayampatti and 63 other village panchayats, which are aiming to become ODF villages by the end of September. Eighty panchayats have already been declared ODF in Madurai.
