| Abstract |
The story of how education for all is reaching communities in the Indian Himalayas, one of the most magnificent but harshest environments of the world. Isolated villages 14,000 feet above sea level, completely cut off for half the year, have stayed beyond the reach of secular teaching. But now Pragya, an NGO operating with help from British funding, is helping to create classrooms here for the first time. The children of the Changpa nomads are also sitting down to lessons for the first time in canvas classrooms, which can move with them across the mountains. Teachers and managers are trained within the community to overcome the shortage of staff willing to work there. The problem of supplying power is also being solved by harnessing the wind and sun. These projects demonstrate that the Education For All Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education can be achieved even with these genuinely "hard to reach" communities. |
