Can children in rural India read?

The 2007 ASER reportss that while many children in rural India can now attend school, the reading level of the children remains low. This likely is because teaching is so poor in these schools.

The report indicates that:

Forty percent of the children in Standard (grade) one cannot recognize letters of the alphabet.

Fifty percent of the children in Standard (grade) three cannot read at a grade one level.

Sixty percent of the children in Standard (grade) five cannot read at a grade two level.

By Sierra Shae Gibbs

Huge cows lumber across the road
Halting the cacophonous traffic
As if they don’t even hear the mindless honking

Dogs roam every alley-way
I unleash my camera at the whizzing streets
And soon I have thirty different photos of stray dogs

Monkeys haunt the outskirts of the hotel
A man dozes in his chair near a half-eaten meal
The primates feast on mango salad, chicken, and rice

Brown coils dot the seldom driven road
The millipedes lounge, lying in dead-looking circles
They absorb the tar’s warmth before nightfall

By Sierra Shae Gibbs copyright 2009

by Sierra

A kid sits in a pile of hay
He’s tied round the neck with twine
His tiny horns hid beneath his fur

Nailed to the side of the mud-brick wall
Is a goat skin hanging to dry
Sunlight peeps through the canopy to heat the hide

In the kitchen, a pot boils over
The meat sizzles in the stew
The aroma of dung and meat drifts out the window

The goat kid tugs and the twine
And tries to reach a nibble of grass
His bony neck stretches out, longing for milk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

India II by Sierra Shae Gibbs

India II

Deep in the swarm of people
I stand, hand in hand, with my mother
My backpack is full of knick-knacks

A little boy taps my shoulder
On his back rests a legless brother
They look at me with pleading lips

I tug on my mother’s sleeve
And ask if she has any money
I had spent all of mine on knick-knacks

She gives me a few rupee bills and coins
And I hand them to the kid with no legs
Both boys smile, and then their stomachs growl


By Sierra Shae Gibbs copyright 2009

Children of Beggars' Valley

Many of you have seen the movie "Slumdog Millionaire." In Hyderabad, India there is a slum called Beggars' Valley. It is one of the most dreadful of living conditions. The Indian government has provided no schooling for most of the children in that slum. A young pastor has provided a school but he really needs help. You can see pictures at the following website:

http://us.wwcs.org/Regions/Asia/India/StMarksHyderabad.html

The 200 students at St. Marks School in Hyderabad, India, are primarily children of beggars and those in low-paying occupations such as street-sweeping. Twenty are orphans, and 70 are children of single mothers.

St. Marks has been providing a school environment for children of this slum for many years, but in the last three years their student population has grown from 60 children to 200. Nearly half the children are unable to pay any tuition at all, which means they are shut out of any government provided education, as even the cost of the necessary uniform or pencils and paper is unattainable for their families.