Villagers were completely disinterested in their children’s schooling. Being unlettered themselves, most parents were unaware of education’s effects, and enrolment in existentfew government schools, was very low. Many villagers, indebted to landlords, would indenture their children as well to work off their debts- so,many children who were enrolled in government schools, would attend poorly and invariably dropout.

Making villagers aware of education’s benefits was a necessary prerequisite to thebetterment of their lives. Education would help their children break out of the cycle of generations of subservience and take charge of their lives. As a foundation stone for the first generation of learners, RDT began by promoting basic primary school attendance in the project areas.

The attendance of girls was a complicated subset of the overall poor attendance record of rural children. Girls were traditionally the first line of support in all household efforts if the elders were occupied or indisposed. They stepped up to take care of siblings, cook, clean and even assist in farming or wage labour. Most therefore were poor in school attendance, dropped out early and went in to early marriages as well.

RDT began its work with speaking to women, asking them to bring their children to informal gatherings where the children were cleaned, their hair combed and oiled, and they were fed a basic, but nutritious meal- which was a major incentive to attend. These occasions were the beginnings of RDT’s Supplementary School programme. The idea was to use these interactions to urge mothers to enrol and send their child continuously to school. Progress was slow, and for over a decade, retention levels only inched along- from 15% in 1985, to 17%, 18%, 20%, till it was around 25% around 1990.

In the early 90s however, things saw a marked upswing, possibly due to a combination of factors. Families had become smaller by then, and parents were more committed to seeing that their 2, 3 or 4 children (as opposed to 6 to 10 numbers earlier) received the best quality inputs. The government also was driving a programme that gave families rations of extra rice for every child that stayed in school, which meant that parents didn’t need to put little hands to work if the family was well-fed. By then, the emergence of first generation learners who had become parents, improved levels of awareness, government initiatives providing free and compulsory education also added to enrolment numbers.

Overall, the successes the government and RDT achieved in other sectorial initiatives like housing, food security, women’s empowerment, healthcare, etc. meant that the hard struggle for survival eased up and allowed parents to focus on the quality of their children’s care and upbringing. And education was a primary aspect and driver of an improvement in living standards.