One of the teachers in the village of Baarali in Udupi, India, decided to buy a bus. He did this because the school has a high dropout rate. Because of its location, students are more likely to drop out then to commute to school every day. It takes 2 miles to walk through a forest just to reach the school. So this teacher purchased a bus and drives his students to and from school to make sure that they get a proper education.
“There are no roads from the houses of the children to the school. There is a mud path through the forest and most of the girl students began dropping out as their families were scared of allowing their children to walk for a total of 6 km to and from school,” said Rajaram. Rajaman is the science and math teacher at Baarali Government Higher Primary School.
“Every week at least five to six students were not turning up. I called up one of our former students – Vijay Hegde and proposed the idea of buying a bus to pick up and drop the children,” Rajaram said. Six months ago, this alumnus of the school helped provide some money to help Rajaman buy a bus. Rajaman could not afford to pay a bus driver so he decided to drive the bus himself. He also spent money on vehicle insurance and gas for the daily trips.
“The school starts at 9:30 am and I make sure that all students are on time. There are three teachers including me and a headmistress in our school. One of the teachers comes to school before the students from the first trip reach school. The teachers stay back in school until all the students are dropped off and I come back to park the bus,” Rajaram explained.