Day 4: TeamUP in Punjab Summer 2017

We woke up at sunrise with nitnem blaring from the local Gurdwara, . After our morning tea, we made a short walk to two local government schools. The first school was grades 6th, 7th, and 8th. The second was a primary school from lower kindergarten to 5th grade. Sadly, the first school fit the description of the majority of government schools across Punjab. We noticed a lack of maintenance around the school. The students were not in their classes, and the teacher was lounging in the lobby. However, once the teacher saw us enter the school yard, he got up and began overseeing a few students that were cleaning the school yard. We were able to briefly speak with the mid-day meal cook who explained to us that the school has no principal, and there is only one government teacher. There were two privately hired teachers, but they were not in the school. After briefly touring the rest of the school’s field, we headed to the next school, which was no more than a block away.

Upon entering, many of us made a preemptive judgment of the school when we saw no students outside. To our surprise, all of the students were actually in their respective classrooms being taught by the teachers. It was the complete opposite of what we had just witnessed at the previous school. We were then able to sit with one of the two teachers (he was the de facto principal) and ask a few question and hear about the various pitfalls in Punjab’s education system and how they have affected his school. He offered a slightly different solution to solving the rural government school financial problem. He suggested that people in villages should rise above politics and pressure should be put on members of the local village to collectively fund the schools.

After breakfast, we made our way to Ekam Public School in Mehatpur. This was a private CBSE school. Pulling into the school, we noticed a significant difference in infrastructure and amenities as compared to the two government schools we had visited a little more than an hour ago. We were ushered in by a gateman and directed to the office where we briefly met with the director of the school. After we introduced ourselves, the director allowed us to do a workshop with the schools plus 2 (12th grade) students. The workshop was designed similar to the workshop we had held at the Sikh Heritage School a few days ago. The workshop was headed by Pahulmeet Singh, and after his presentation, we selected a handful of students to interview individually. The students at this school were a lot more attentive and responsive. This may have been due to the fact that the students were older and/or we were a bit more prepared and confident this time around with our questions and speaking. The responses were interesting. We found that a lot more of the students had some sort of rough plan for future.

After a quick pit stop to refuel with tea and some snacks, we headed to Lovely Professional University in Jalandhar. We arrived at around 3 P.M., and the summer heat was beginning to become draining, but the team stood strong. We quickly visited the university hospital, which was surprisingly empty. Aside from the occasional passerby, we saw no doctors or patients.

We then headed to the admissions building. It was admissions season, so the building was quite lively. Unlike the American university admissions process, students come directly to the University, speaks with an admission officer, the officer interviews the student, sees if they met the requirements, and then accepts or rejects them. Also to our amazement, campus tours were given only after you have gained admission to the University. We then decided to go off into the campus on our own to do what we had come to do: speak with LPU students and to hear their thoughts on the university. We individually stopped students as they made their way around campus. Many of the students were really happy to speak to us and gave very informative answers to our questions about the higher education and employment in Punjab. After speaking with about 20 students, we called it a day.

Before our two hour drive back home, we stopped at McDonald's and the world famous restaurant, Haveli, in Jalandhar. Exhausted from the long day we came home and debriefed after dinner and made our way to bed to get some rest for Day 5.