In villages of Olpad taluka in Surat, after mothers pack their children off to school, they pull out their own textbooks and read aloud—finger following each word, like they have been told to do in school. They also worry about their exams and the marksheets that will be sent to their husbands to sign. These mothers go to the same school as their children, to learn English.

Till recently, villages in Olpad didn’t have an English medium school—the nearest was 15 km away in Surat—so when the ‘VEA English medium school’ was set up in Masma, most parents enrolled their children in the school. Soon, the school authorities realised that most of the women in the village have never learnt English beyond the alphabet and wouldn’t be able to help their children with their books. So last month, the school decided to bring the mothers to the classrooms.

While the children stay in school from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the mothers study from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Friday. The English classes are free for the women, says the school. Apart from English, the mothers are given personality development classes, helped to boost their self-confidence and lectured on modern child rearing skills.

Dr. Deepak Rajguru, chairman of VEA school, says they are overwhelmed by the response. “Since most parents didn’t know English, they couldn’t help the kids with their homework. So we decided to teach the mothers to read, speak and write English,” says Rajguru.

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