This Mysore school is a train coach replica - A new way to curb dropouts

It seems like the academic fraternity in Haropura village near Mysore is doing everything to prevent student dropouts. While the most plausible ways to curb dropouts are scholarships and government financial support, a train coach seems out of the box. But this is what Headmaster Basavanaik and the teachers, Doreswamy, Tarannum and Netravathi of a small Government School in Haropura did.

The now transformed school, earlier only had three classrooms. Other modern facilities were absent and this resulted in severe shortfall in student attendance eventually leading to dropouts. The school was facing the threat of closure if the trend continued. Worried with this prospect, the teachers along with the principal decided to do something spectacular to pull the students back to school.

The decision to paint the school to look like a train coach

A village where even the bus connectivity is rare, imagining a train was a dream too far-fetched. The school authorities decided to transform the school by putting together INR 25000 from their own pockets and paint the entire school to replicate the coach of an Indian railways train.

The decision has actually worked. Today, the school looks like a train passing right through the village. The classes are modified to look like coaches, while the principal’s office is made to look like a train engine and the school playground resembles a railway station platform.

The innovative step has captured the attention of the entire village as well as the government officials. The education department and the gram panchayat has offered to build a compound wall for the school. Needless to say, the school is seeing hundred percent attendance post the fairy tale turnover.

Others who thought differently

The Haropura Government School is not the first school to do something like this. Earlier, a school in Rajasthan had transformed the entire school to look like a train and even painted the school DISE codes as coach numbers. A government school in Bengaluru had also taken the same route in January, earlier this year.

Innovation certainly goes a long way to supplement education. Going by the trend of schools transforming into railway coaches, we can safely say, the students will arrive to a wonderful destination.