Patna: In a new initiative, a government school in Bihar has set up a small bank to give loans to poor schoolchildren who discontinue study midway. Most of the children drop out for want of money to buy even small study materials such as pencils, erasers, notebooks or unable to even get their hair cut. The bank has helped around 200 children so far since it was opened four months ago.
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The unique bank functioning at a government middle school in Golanganj district, some 150km north of Patna, has come as a ray of hope for poor, unprivileged children who were skipping classes. The bank functions with the support of local villagers and currently it has a reserve fund of more than Rs10,000 (Dh513).
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“Previously, I skipped many classes as my father didn’t have money to buy study materials due to which I failed to complete my school homework. But now whenever I face financial trouble at home, I get loan from the school to buy them. I am very happy,” Kundan Kumar, one of the students, said. There are many school students like him who are frequently approaching the school bank to use the loan facility.
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School authorities said they were concerned at the low attendance despite their homes being nearer to the school.
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“When we tried to study the reasons, we found they had been skipping classes as they didn’t have money to even buy pencils, erasers and notebooks. So we decided to open a small bank to help children give money to buy these study items,” schoolteacher and bank manager Ashtbhuja Singh told this scribe by phone.
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According to him, the bank gives a minimum of Re1 coin to a maximum of Rs200 to the children as loan, depending on the requirement of the schoolchildren for which no interest is charged. The money has to be returned within a month. What is interesting is that the school has not only been giving loans to buy study materials but also to get students have their hair cut and buy soap and shampoo to have a good bath and maintain cleanliness in the school.
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“Every day, eight to 10 students approach us for getting loans. Most of the children have taken loans for buy study materials and getting their hairs cut,” Singh said, adding they also had been giving loans to parents to solve financial problems on the domestic front. He said they were happy that a small initiative had brought tremendous change in society.
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Education department authorities are now planning to adopt this idea in other schools too. “This is a very good initiative. We are planning to adopt this idea in other schools to check dropouts and increase attendance in the schools,” education department official Shiv Kumar said.
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