THE STORY OF A DREAM

The big banyan tree in the Arts building premises of Dhaka University (DU) is quite a popular place. The tree's cool, serene shade on a spacious podium around it makes it an ideal place for adda.

Asif Bayezid, a student of Institute of Education and Research (IER), DU looks at it from a different angle. He once imagined it to be a place where university students would be teaching homeless children under the cool shade of the ancient banyan tree.

Asif later started Paathshala, a voluntary organisation that aims at eliminating illiteracy from the DU campus. Asif says, “Our teacher Professor Mohammad Mojibur Rahman of IER, DU first gave us the idea. During one of his class lectures he showed us how a huge number of children have been passing their childhood in illiteracy.”
These children don't live in remote villages, rather ironically; they live in the DU campus, the epitome of Bangladesh's higher education. Asif adds, “That day he told us to do something sustainable for these children so that they could learn how to read and write at least.”

Paathshala has now become a new form of activism in the entire DU campus. With more than 200 volunteer teachers who are all students of the university, Paathshala has so far ensured literacy and basic education for 550 people, most of whom are children and adolescents who live and work in the DU campus.

Paathshala organises capacity building training for its volunteers.

Paathshala, meaning “school” in Bengali, runs centres in 20 DU dormitories and 15 spots in the campus. In these learning sessions the student-teachers teach them to read, write in Bengali, some life skills and basic arithmetic.
This kind of initiative by DU students is not uncommon. Mainuddin, former student of history department, shares his experience, “While staying at Jahurul Huq Hall I formed a group and used to teach the boys working in the canteen. But like many such initiatives, it was not an organised effort. So we could not continue and even our students lost interest.” Now Mainuddin is one of the founding volunteers of Paathshala and from his previous experiences, he wants to make sure that Paathshala will not become a short lived effort.

Though Paathshala is a recent effort, considering its significance, the vice chancellor Professor Dr AAMS Arefin Siddique has recognised it as one of the certified organisations of Dhaka University. Thanks to this, the volunteers of Paathshala are allowed to run their activities all over the university with a central office in the room no 008 of DU's Institute of Education and Research.

These working children get not only education but also guidance from their Paathshala apus.

Asif says, “At first our dream was to include all the street children of the campus in our literacy programmme. But at first to make our activity more organised we started to work with the canteen staff and other workers who live and work in the campus.”

The challenge now is to make these children sit with their books after a hard day's work. Shumi Akhter, a student of Mangement and Paathshala's coordinator of Shamsunahar Hall says, “While conducting a survey in the campus we found that most of these children had left school in fear of corporal punishment and also for poverty. So in the beginning, we spent a lot of time to assure them that ours is not that kind of school.”

Now these working children and adolescents eagerly wait for the night to sit with their bhaiyas  and apus. After 10 pm when there is no rush of breakfast, lunch or supper, the canteens of DU's dormitories take a new look. Ten to 12 boys aged 8 to 15 sit at the dining tables with books and notepads where they otherwise serve meals for students.

Literacy is the beginning of education.

Ten-year-old Md Masum works at the canteen of Shamsun Nahaar Hall. He says, “The canteen manager here is my uncle and brought me here from my village in Chandpur. I only learned the alphabets in my village school but then I forgot. Now here our apus teach us three days a week. Now I can write the Bengali alphabets and some words too.”

Sometimes the university administration lends a helping hand. The University dormitory administrations agree to help Paathshala from their community development fund. National Curriculum and Textbook Board and an organisation called Room to Read provide the books and learning equipment. UNESCO has also been supporting this effort with funds and equipment.

Paatshala is a shining example of what students of our universities can do to make their campus a better place. It is true that our campuses are ridden with bloodthirsty student politics, but there are rays of hope, and Paatshala is certainly one of them.