A world-class school in Bihar village

Updated on: Sunday, February 06, 2011

In a remote corner of the state, at Chamanpura village of Gopalganj district, a story is unfolding of unique enterprise and innovative methods in school education.

Situated about 30 km from Gopalganj, this school, known as ChaitanyaGurukulPublic School, was founded in 2009 by an ex-IITian, Chandrakant Singh, now based in Bangalore.

Bereft of electricity till date, about 450 children, both boys and girls, are imparted lessons in physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer through Skype, video conferencing and Internet. Eight of Singh’s associates, sitting in various corners of the world, have joined hands to teach children right from Class I to Class VII, through video-conferencing.

Apart from distance learning, 16 teachers, who reside on the campus, are helping the students in their studies. Here, teachers mark their attendance using a biometric finger-printer and students too log their attendance in computers. The computers run on gensets owned by the school.

Once computers were in place, the teaching did not have to wait. Pankaj Kumar of NTPC, a technocrat, teaches physics from Singrauli. Sanjay Rai, an alumnus from BITS, Pilani, working with HAL, teaches chemistry from Korwa in UP, while M Vats, a US-based technocrat teaches math.

The push came when the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was attacking Bihari migrants in Mumbai. Singh then decided to do something immediately for his home town.

A world-class school in Bihar village

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