By H H Mohrmen
It is heartening to read the news that Lahkmen Rymbui our Education Minster visited schools run by Delhi government to learn about their innovative idea of starting a Happiness class in their schools. Rymbui deserves a pat on the back because it is takes courage to accept good ideas from others and to try and replicate those in the state. Hopefully this expectation sees the light sooner than later.
In fact we should not only have Happiness classes; instead we should ensure that the entire learning process should be fun for all the students in the state. But before trying to copy good lessons from others, the Education minister should ensure that his earlier orders were implemented in letter and spirit. If one may ask, are schools in the state implementing the government’s order with regard to the weight of school bags that kids have to carry to school? The other order that Education department came up with was with regards to teachers giving home works for kids in a certain age group. Are these orders being carried out by the schools in the State?
What the minister did not realize is that there are some innovative ideas started in some schools in the state which the government of Meghalaya can be proud of. This one idea is not only relevant to Meghalaya, but it is an idea worth sharing with other states too, because accessing nutritious food with adequate diet is a challenge for children all over the country. It is also one project which the State Government can claim that it was successfully implemented in some schools in Meghalaya.
School Gardens is a very important component of the North East Slow Food and Agro-biodiversity Society (NESFAS), “No one shall be left behind,” project sponsored by the Regional Electricity Corporation (REC). It is an outgrowth of regular school work, but it also serves many purposes. The main objective of this element of the project is to get children out of doors and away from books and connect them with the natural world. It not only connects them with the nature but it also helps them understand the true source of their food. It may be mentioned that the outcome of the present school system is that it disconnects the kids from how their food is produced and more importantly it disconnects them from nature. Many a time kids were advised to avoid touching the soil because it is considered to be dirty and to contain harmful germs which could make them sick. This is a very serious concern because it disconnects them from nature and its mysteries, the ground of their being and it also disconnects them from their food system.
School gardens help children learn how to grow crops from the beginning till they are harvested and how the same is finally brought to their plates. Under this project which is implemented by NESFAS and supported by partner NGOs, the hope is that school gardens can help in achieving the production of micro nutrients-rich and climate resilient species. But the most important contribution that school gardens can have is to improve the children’s mid-day meal – a Scheme to provide a better diet for the children.
It was also found that, not only students, but even teachers and parents lack awareness about the importance of having food which provides adequate diet for our wellbeing. In fact the food that we consume every day consists of the same ingredients which belong to the same food groups. In this project the importance of the ten food groups was emphasised and people were encouraged to keep their own dietary diversity score. In schools where there are school garden, the management does not have to spend any money to provide nutritious green leafy vegetables to the students, because they are available in the school gardens. At the same time they can also have fresh and chemical-free food too.
For achieving this important goal, gardening is taught to children right from their school life with a hope that this will help develop the concept of gardening amongst the kids. Teachers and students in schools which have started school gardens were also made aware about the different food groups as prescribed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and how it is important to take care of our diet. FAO defines Dietary Diversity as a qualitative measure of food consumption that reflects household access to a variety of foods, and is also a proxy for nutrient adequacy of the diet of individuals.
According to FAO there are a total of 10 foods groups that people generally consume and in a day individuals should consume a minimum of at least 5 food groups to enable them to have a complete and balanced diet. The ten food groups are meat, poultry and fish in one category, nuts and seeds in another, grains, white roots, tuber and plantains in another. The next group includes vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables, eggs and dairy products which are categorized in two separate groups, pulses which include beans, peas and lentils in another group, then there is a group which includes only dark green leafy vegetables, other fruits and vegetables which are not included in the above mentioned groups are in another two separate groups. In making the SG project, students, teachers and even the cooks were asked to ensure that the food plants belonging to different food categories are not missed out when selecting seeds for plantation.
NESFAS has initiated the School Garden concept since the time the International Terra Madre (ITM) was organized in the state, but it was introduced only in the few villages which were selected as visiting villages for the visitors during the festival. The few schools which have implemented school gardens and continued with the project have seen the difference; some of these schools have even managed to get the support of their respective village employment committees (VECs) to get the school garden a proper fencing using the MGNREGA scheme.
In some cases school gardens have also become a demonstration plot for government officials to teach the farmers the different farming techniques. But the most important achievements in the introduction of this project, is that students, teachers and even parents were able to understand the importance of planting the 10 food crops in their school gardens. In some schools, children have cultivated green leafy vegetables, garlic, cucumber, pumpkin, mustard leaves, beans, radish, peas, chilly, coriander, bitter tomato, onion leaves, maize and other vegetables which will help supplement their diet when these items are consumed as part of their mid-day meal.
However, there are challenges in the implementation of this project. For convenience sake it is important that the school garden should be adjacent to the school. But there are schools which do not have space to start their own school gardens, and in some cases the soil near the school is either rocky or sandy hence not suitable for starting a garden, or cultivation of any plants. In such case the Organisation has come up with an innovative idea of starting terrace gardening. Schools were provided with Thermocol boxes and this helped the schools to plant vegetables in the throwaway fish boxes. Pynthor Langtein U.P Schools have adopted this method where 5 boxes have been used for starting the school garden.
Teachers are in consensus that the idea of School Gardens is very important as it helps the children involve in gardening and connects them with nature. Some suggested that there should be one period every day for students of all classes where they should be taught gardening. It may be mentioned that in all the school gardens, the teachers, students, midday meal (MDM) cooks, participatory guarantee scheme (PGS) groups and event parents actively participate in the land preparation and sowing of seeds. But the most important outcome of the project is the that students were happy to have their own school garden.
School Gardens are therefore an idea and now a ‘best practice’ that was implemented by some schools that Meghalaya can showcase to others. We not only need to look to other for bright ideas, but we also need to look inward and discover that there are good ideas and best practices that are within. Hopefully the Government will study the success of the ‘School Garden’ concept and practice and encourage others schools too to start their own gardens.