“Come and see your marks. All of you have passed,” the chemistry teacher calls out to Siva. The boy nods his head but hurries along with a bundle of thatch on his shoulders. For most of the Plus Two students at the Government Higher Secondary School Koodapakkam, taking the time to check their marks on Friday, meant they could lose an entire day’s wages.
The students here work in brick kilns, packaging industries and petrol bunks during the weekends. No school during the summer usually means no mid-day meal, but it is an opportunity to earn wages for a full meal for their family. Sandwiched between huts and fields and with goats grazing in its front yard, the school is located two kilometers from the nearest bus-stand.
This is not a school that produces toppers. The difference between the first mark here and the State topper is usually above 300 marks, every year. Yet, for three years in the running, the school has been the only government school to manage a hundred per cent pass.
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“Only the weakest of the weak students come here for higher secondary,” says M. Vaidyanathan, headmaster. “This is usually the last option for students who are not able to get into any of the city schools through the common admission process.”
Offering only pure science and Tamil medium as an option are reasons for most students to search for greener pastures after Class X. Vaidyanathan, who was transferred just a few months ago from a government school in the city, confesses that he was bewildered by the drastic difference he found here. “Most of the parents work as coolies and depend on some income from the children.”
Apart from extra coaching in the evenings, the students stay back in school even during the board exams. “After each exam, the teacher in charge of the next exam’s subject supervises the revision,” says Ranee, Botany teacher. “If we get poor marks, the teacher calls us and talks to us,” says Ramya. “They ask us if we have any distractions, any problem in the family or no food at home. For Dhivya, who has no electricity at home, arrangements were made to study in school. ”I usually study with a lamp at home until it affected my eyesight and I had to have an operation.”
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But it is after the results that the teachers have their task cut out.
“The students here have no idea what to do next. It is up to us to motivate them,” says Premkumar Julian, zoology teacher.
He buys application forms for his class every year and urges them to apply. Vijayakumar who scored 952 – the first mark in the school – has just convinced his parents to let him pursue B.Sc, Chemistry.
But Tamizh is not so lucky. “My mother says I must go to work in the plastic company here. They pay Rs. 100 a day. I want to become a nurse.”