Children’s Day Celebration (14th November 2009)

District Resource Centre (DRC), Purulia

On the auspicious occasion of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday celebrated as

Children’s Day, 14th November was a milestone for District Resource Centre, Purulia.

DRC celebrated Children’s Day with four neighboring schools at Jhalda II block on

this auspicious day to create a difference in the

children’s outlook on their textbook. The DRC

team on behalf of Pratham, invited the four

schools namely Kotshila Girls’ High School,

Bamnia High School, Adardih High School and

Jhilinglohar High School. The team requested

the Principal of each school to send five

students each from fifth and sixth standard

guided by a teacher on this historical day to

Kotshila High School, the venue for the celebration. The Principal of the said schools

passionately supported our initiative and the event.

Quiz Competition was the tool to the

celebration on this day. Through this quiz

competition, the DRC Team primarily aimed

to increase children’s interest on their text

books. Keeping the objective in mind,

questions for the quiz was made from their

Bengali, English, History and Geography

books. Apart from these, questions on

general knowledge were also posed to

increase their general awareness.

The quiz, according to the subjects had five rounds. Each round had three questions.

Each question had 5 points. If a group was

unable to answer a particular question then

the question would be passed onto the next

group. If the next group succeeded then the

group would get a bonus of 2 points. From

the ten children of each school, a student

from fifth standard and a student from sixth

standard would form the group to contest for

one round. Again in the next round, the pupils

from the group would be changed by their respective school with the same

combination of one student from fifth and sixth standard respectively. Therefore,

students from each group would change in each round. Hence, all the children would

get a chance to participate in the quiz.

The program commenced with a song by

the teachers of Kotshila Girls’ School. The

schools, as per the direction from the

Pratham team, formed groups of two

pupils—one from fifth and one from sixth

standard to contest the first round of

Bengali. The students seemed confused as

to attend this kind of an inter-school quiz

competition. The expression of a new

experience was not difficult to reveal from their face. Students were excited and

ready to answer all the questions that would come their way and take away the

trophy for ‘their’ school. Questions from

their text books such as ‘Name a poem

written by Michael Madhusudan Dutta’,

‘Who is known as the Vishwa Kabi?’, ‘For

which work did Kabiguru Rabindranath

Tagore get the Noble Prize?’, ‘Given a

sentence: Ram is Rahim’s father; who is the

father and who is the son?’ and spellings of

certain English words were asked. Some were confident with their answers, some

stressed their grey matter to surf through their memories, some urged to answer but

didn’t get a chance, and some looked blank with no answer. On the run, the DRC

team guided the children and gave them the space to answer questions without fear

and promoted healthy competition.

Gradually the Bengali, English, History, Geography and General Knowledge round

passed, and now the students waited for the winner to be declared. Finally, the

winner was declared and Jhilinglohar High School rejoiced with the Trophy of the

Inter-School Quiz Competition organized

by Pratham West Bengal. Each participant

of the winning school got a box of color

pencils as a memento. The other

participants got a pen for actively

participating in the quiz competition. This

joyful event ended with a closing song by

the teacher of Jhilinglohar High School

and a vote of thanks from the Pratham

West Bengal DRC Team.

An ideal day for the ideal cause was the feedback of the teachers of the four invited

schools. Children went home rejoicing, discussing on the quiz questions, the songs

by their teachers and their enjoyment throughout the programme. The biggest

feedback to the Pratham members was the smile on every child’s face and their

enriched expression, reflecting the objective of the program, fulfilled.

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