Rajasthan: From cruise ships to trains, a teacher is on a mission to give schools a facelift

Bharatpur, Rajasthan

Standing on the deck of the ‘Education Cruise’, Megha Meena, a student of class 12th of the Government Upper Secondary School in Alwar district’s Haldina village, looked pleased as punch. After all, how many students of his age could boast about their school being built like a ship!

“Our smart classes are held at the upper portion of the ship and we study there using modern technology on a projector,” Meena, a 18-year-old student, told Gaon Connection. “Even neighbouring villages know all about our ‘ship school’,” she grinned.

Elsewhere, in Alwar’s Railway Colony’s Upper Secondary School, Bhoomika, a class eight student is excited that the school’s corridors resemble a train. “I am thrilled to be studying in a school that is so unique,” she told Gaon Connection.

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The school buildings where Meena and Bhoomika study are the product of the imagination of Rajesh Lavnaiya, a 57-year-old engineer in the education department of Rajasthan who was a primary school teacher from 1992-2008.

When Lavaniya landed his first job as a primary school teacher in Dhaneta village in Rajasthan’s Alwar district in 1992, he already held a diploma in civil engineering that he had completed in 1988. It was his background in engineering that inspired him to refurbish schools and classrooms in his district.

“The condition of the school building where I first came to work was appalling and I couldn’t imagine any child ever wanting to go to such a school every day,” Lavaniya told Gaon Connection.

“I resolved to transform the face of the school and provide the children a far more attractive ambience to learn in,” Lavaniya said.

He has designed a school in Alwar to look like a train and a railway platform. In Indergarh village, Alwar district, the school looks like an aeroplane, while in Haldina village, in the same district, another school is a two-storeyed cruise ship.

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In total, 12 schools in Alwar district are either painted or modified in the form of cruise ships, trains and aeroplanes.

From being a teacher to being an engineer

Lavaniya was able to embark on his mission to make not just the school he worked in, but other schools better learning spaces too, because in 2008, he was appointed as a junior engineer under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan which is a central government scheme to ensure every child in India has access to education.

“Now, I could involve myself in refurbishing the schools. Some of the schools I had visited were below par, with some of them not even having toilets,” Lavaniya said. “In some schools, the children had to use a lane outside to relieve themselves. Other children had to stand guard at either end of the lane to ensure no one passed through while the children were using it,” he recalled.

Lavaniya set about repairing, reconstructing and repainting school walls and classrooms. He had inspirational quotes painted on the walls. In the last 15 years or so he has transformed the way 500 government schools across Rajasthan look. He has planted gardens, created playgrounds, and made the educational institutions colourful, attractive and conducive to teaching and learning. He said about 12 schools a year are refurbished.

He has been imaginative and quirky to the delight of the students who now come to the schools willingly and with enthusiasm.

Lavaniya’s efforts have also increased the enrolment rate in the schools. In the government middle school situated in the Morsarai area in Alwar city, the strength of classes 1-8 used to be a poor 35 students, but after Lavaniya brightened up the school premises and cleaned up its surroundings, the strength has now risen to 350.

Lavaniya’s work was recognised and acknowledged by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot in 2012 on Independence Day.

“Our school has become a selfie-point for visitors to our village,” laughed Pushpa Devi, the principal of Indergarh Senior Secondary School in Alwar district that has classrooms designed like an aeroplane.

Lavaniya’s work has been appreciated by the government and he was invited to conduct a workshop under the UP government’s Mission Kayakalp, to give government schools a facelift.

“I was invited as a resource person to lead the workshop and share my experiences of transforming the schools in Rajasthan,” Lavaniya said.

It is heartening how the staff of the schools and non-profits have stepped up to help schools in the area to improve their infrastructure, Lavaniya said.

“A fund has been set up to organise the money collected through crowdfunding. We use this fund to beautify the schools as much as we can,” Lavaniya said.

The financial donation contributed by the public or the NGOs to the Gram Vikas Samiti [village development council] is utilised by the school administration for the beautification activities and maintenance as per the requirement.