Mobile schools in city: Where there’s a wheel, there is a way

New Delhi: Sumedha Singh’s textbooks gathered dust in one corner of her tiny house. The 12-year-old Delhi girl had dropped out of school and thought she’d never get back to a class again. She had danced with joy when she heard about the birth of her baby brother. But her spirits fell when realised it meant she had to leave school. Her parents, who worked as daily labourers at a construction site, left the baby in her care when they went out for work. Sumedha took care of him – and wistfully thought of her school days.

Then, one day two years ago, she heard about mobile schools. Sumedha could carry her brother with her to the class room, she was told. And she did.

Two years after leaving school, she was back in a class. Under the programme, old buses are converted to classrooms and driven to residential colonies to help educate children.