Located in the lush green area of Pamohi locality in Assam, a school does not want its pupils to pay them with money. Instead, they only accept plastic in the form of fees!

Fascinating right? Called Akshar School, started by Parmita Sarma and Mazin Mukhtar to make education free for underprivileged kids while saving the environment.

We wanted to make the coming generation from underprivileged sections break the circle of poverty and be environmentally sensitive. Education is the only way these goals can be achieved,” says Parmita.

While designing various curriculums, the couple spoke to some students and found out something that became the foundation for their unique idea.

“We asked all our kids to collect plastic all week and bring at least 25 pieces of plastic by the end of the week. Initially, no one took us seriously. When we told them that this was their fee, the students slowly started bringing plastic every Friday,” she says.

The school is affiliated with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and follows a unique learning-by-doing approach.

“At Akshar School, we place students in the grade levels that they are at based on an aptitude test. So, if a student excels in 6th standard maths, that’s where they’ll study. But if they’re more comfortable with 3rd-standard science, then their focus will be on that,” Parmita explains.

This approach provides an opportunity for older students who couldn’t attend school earlier, perhaps due to poverty, to catch up and learn at their own pace.

Another feature of their curriculum is that the school focuses on the holistic development of the children through vocational training-based courses for the kids to learn such as carpentry, solar panel fitting, electrical work, tailoring, gardening, and landscaping.

Along with this, the founders came up with another path-breaking solution to help the unemployment situation of the locality.

“We noticed that many children started to skip school to do daily wage work. We decided to employ these kids in the school and pay them so that they would attend school,” Parmita explains.

Each student is paid in points which are equivalent to the same amount of money. “The kids can deposit their weekly points in the bank and save them. They can keep collecting them and buy something expensive too. For example, many kids saved up for months and were able to buy mobile phones with the money,” she adds.

With their plastic collecting initiative, they have collected 2,330 plastic bottles and 7,19,700 plastic wrappers in totality.

The school started with only 10 students but is now brimming with more than 150 students.