A 76-YO Teacher is Fighting Single-Handedly to Keep His Village School Open, All for Free

“I am the most ordinary man you will ever interview,” was one of the first things Dwijendra Nath Ghosh, a teacher in West Bengal’s Purba Bardhman district, told me.

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While he might consider himself ordinary, what he has done for hundreds of children in his village of Basantpur is nothing short of extraordinary. A retired government teacher, the 76-year-old has a unique approach to retirement — he still teaches every day.

For the past decade, Ghosh’s ageing smile has been a beacon of hope for the village children. He has been teaching and managing Basantapur Junior High School, keeping it from shutting down, all without charging a fee.

Why does he do it? Smiling humbly through the wrinkles etched into his sun-tanned forehead by the Bengal sun, Ghosh shares his story with The Better India.

Compassion like no other

Often when we look for the source of inspiration and motivation in people, it is their own life experiences that push them to their limits.

“I grew up in a poor home. There was a time when we struggled to find food. Getting an education when you come from an underprivileged and economically disadvantaged background is the biggest challenge. Turning your life around and achieving something that previous generations could not is very difficult,” he says. 

Born in a financially unstable family, Ghosh understood the importance of helping others, especially when it came to education. “I had to work and struggled to get an education. If I don’t work day and night to improve the system for the children of my village, then who will?” he says.

Ghosh has a BEd degree and a master’s in English and political science. “I started working as a teacher in 1975 and retired in 2008 as an assistant teacher at Jamalpur High School,” he adds.

While Ghosh was fresh out of college, ready to work, he had opened a school for underprivileged students with five of his friends. “My spirits were soon dulled by the financial burden I faced due to lack of personal funding. Working for the underprivileged meant lesser income for me. I became a family man and needed to support my family,” he says.

Unwillingly he stopped working for the school and looked for jobs elsewhere. “The school functioned for several years after that but I was not a part of it. It still haunts me that I had to put my needs before the school. But I was sure that I would get another chance to work for the society,” he says with a heavy voice.

The opportunity came knocking on his door in 2008 when Ghosh retired and decided to return to his village.

‘I still see hope’

When Ghosh returned home, he realised that his village and the nearby villages still did not have any schools.

“Children were travelling to different villages to study, and the dropout rate was quite high. Most students were economically disadvantaged with no options for a better education. These children not only came from poor homes but also belonged to scheduled castes, facing a lot of casteism and unfair discrimination,” he says.

Ghosh decided that he needed to do something. “I reached out to the Government and raised the matter. I did all the research and then reached out to the State Government with the request of opening a junior high school in the village,” he shares.

While Ghosh secured the approvals in 2010, the construction of the school did not start until 2014. “You know how government work is — slow as a snail. I dedicated all my time to getting the construction process started. The ruling party leaders at the time did not support me at all, but I had strong faith that everything would work out. Eventually, when the construction did start, it was the poor people of the village who helped me complete it quickly,” he says.

Ghosh faced another challenge when the school needed permanent teachers appointed. “We had been struggling with no permanent teachers for years. Back then, I was faced with a dilemma — if I left the school without any permanent teacher, it would shut down. I have been working without a salary ever since,” he says.

He adds, “There is a lot of shortage of teachers in India. We have been facing this issue for a long time but small government schools like ours face the brunt the most. No temporary teacher with a menial salary wants to come and teach in a remote village.”

India, according to a UNESCO report, is short by over a million teachers.

“The school currently has four temporary teachers who keep changing with a student strength of 140,” he says, adding that the school started with a mere 40 students and now the number has increased manifold. “The student dropout rate is also very low. Children from different villages come and study with us.”

The school gets an annual grant of Rs 25,000 according to Ghosh. “It is a small amount enough to take care of the upkeep of the school but not enough to pay any teachers. We are functioning somehow,” he says.

The liveliest man, his spirit seemed to be broken when he spoke about the future. “The future is quite uncertain if you ask me. I have no idea how long I can keep running the school this way. In addition, the school has so many girls getting an education. The larger picture is that if they didn’t go to school, they might be forced into child marriage. To solve all these issues, we are in desperate need of permanent teachers, and the hope is that we will get them soon,” he says.

Uttam Babu, who has been working as a guest teacher at the school for more than a year, says, “I have seen Ghosh sir working in the school relentlessly without any remuneration. It has been decades since he retired but his zeal to teach and help children has not died down. I too get a meagre remuneration but such is the state of the system. The school has many children but no permanent teachers, which increases the workload altogether. However, we are hoping that we will soon get at least one permanent teacher.”

Ghosh says his only motivation to work without pay in the school is its students. “The glimmer of hope for a better future in the eyes of the children is all the salary I need to keep teaching,” he remarks.

(Edited by Pranita Bhat; All Image Credit: Dwijendra Nath Ghosh)