NEW DELHI: As the bright yellow bus navigates a maze of potholed alleys to a trash pickers' slum, New Delhi's latest scheme for educating the poor draws curious stares.

As when the cartoon-daubed vehicle arrives at the fly-infested camp, it is greeted by a mob of children who swarm around its door.

For two hours, the team of social workers and teachers aboard use food and games to bring learning to some of the city's tens of thousands of children who have never been to school.

“We're developing a patience for school among kids who would never see the inside of a classroom — they live in the shadows,” said R.M. Mohla, coordinator of the slum education programme.

The Chalta Firta, or mobile school, is Mohla's brainchild, an attempt to meet India's ambitious universal education target of getting all children aged between six to 14 into school by 2010.

But educators meet resistance from slum dwellers, prostitutes and migrant labourers who say they prefer their children to work in order to supplement meagre family incomes.

The programme was inaugurated in January by the New Delhi government, which is paying non-profit groups Rs3,000 per year per child to operate four buses.

Parents were initially mistrustful of the mobile schools, worrying they may be a scam. After seeing it operate regularly for several months, their fears have been quelled, although convincing families to send income-earning children to school remains challenging.

“It's hard for us, we have no choice to make ends meet,” said rubbish picker Kuppa, father of one of the scheme's success stories, eight-year-old Subyamarni, who is now in a government school.

Subyamarni spent his early childhood sifting trash and collecting recyclable plastic and other items with his father, but now spends evenings doing homework at home and working when he can.

“I like school because I can play games and learn to read,” said Subyamarni.

The bus drew Subyamarni in with its playful exterior — cartoons and pastel lettering make it look like a nursery school from the outside, although the television and stereo inside do give it the feel of a rock group's tour bus.

“In the beginning parents feared the kids would be taken away. They didn't know what was happening on the bus,” said social worker Durgesh Kumar Gupta, whose job is to knock on doors and convince families to send their children to the bus school.

Since its rocky beginnings, the pilot programme has enrolled half its 450 students in full-time government schools. The mobile teachers consult with the schools of enrolled children to monitor their progress.

Parmot, a seventh grader living in the slum, helps the bus teachers by monitoring attendance of the scheme's graduates at the government school.

“I look for the kids at school and make sure they are coming. They need to learn,” the aspiring cricketer said.

Students who had not showered in months now arrive at the bus with damp, freshly-combed hair and notebooks in which they have done their homework.

As the programme has expanded, the pair of teachers on board have found that themselves teaching more than 70 children at a time — and discovered that controlling so many at once can be exhausting, especially in the summer heat.

“It's very hard on the teachers,” Gupta said at the end of a chaotic session that included maths and badminton.

— Averting a demographic disaster —

The Indian government has recently begun to give schooling unprecedented attention, promising to triple the education budget, which is four per cent of gross domestic product, in the next five years.

A staggering 51 per cent of India's population of more than one 1.1 billion are younger than 25 and two-thirds are aged under 35.

Experts say India's “youth bulge,” seen lasting until 2050, could turn out to be its greatest asset — or a demographic disaster if the government fails to provide education and jobs for young people.

“An unskilled, under-utilised, frustrated young population will derail economic growth, undermine harmony and breed violence,” warned prominent civic activist Jayaprakash Narayan, based in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Despite the apparent success of the bus scheme, there are critics of Mohla's programme who say it does not serve a broad enough spectrum of needs.

Sunita Chugh, assistant professor at the National University of Education Planning and Administration, who studies education of the poor, said that with so many children in a small van, “I don't think the teachers are able to serve the multi-grade needs of the kids”.

India's overall report card on improving learning levels is abysmal as the education system is mired in corruption with test papers for sale and a teacher absenteeism rate of 25 per cent, the second highest in the world, according to a recent Unesco report.

Literacy levels lag many developing countries, including in sub-Saharan Africa. China's literacy rate is 90.9 per cent, Kenya's is 85.1 per cent while India's is 65.2 per cent.

Nevertheless, Mohla is optimistic about the success of the mobile school programme, and makes weekly visits to the sites, reviews the curriculum, and suggests changes.

“We have to look at the performance of this as a transitioning station, not a permanent school,” he said, adding that he is now meeting with corporate sponsors and other charities to expand the programme.

And, he promises, the next buses will be air conditioned.

—AFP