RURAL MAHARASHTRA

In one of the houses of Galwah village located at Yavatmal district, resides Gopal Gofane, who never gave up on completing his education. Gopal studies Master of Arts in Education at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru campus. A first-generation learner in his family, he completed his primary education in his own village. Later his urge to continue his studies, made him travel 3 km away from his village to complete his education for class 8 to class 10.

While he was determined to complete higher secondary, he relocated to Amravati at his relative’s home. During his stay, he faced a lot of challenges which demotivated him to study further. Coming from a Marathi-medium school, he faced a language barrier during his junior college days.

“Studying in Science stream under English-medium required extra tutoring. Looking at my family's financial background, it was not possible to join extra classes for every subject,” said Gopal.

Speaking about the challenges, he added, “Staying with a relative, I could barely take out time for my studies. There were a lot of distractions and helping in household chores made it more difficult. While I was mentally stressed, my academic performance was getting affected. I returned to my village with a heavy heart. Looking at my academic results, my family insisted that I leave my studies and join a local hardware store to earn money.”

Coming from a family that earned income through daily wage work, there was a lot of financial crisis.

At the age of 18, while he continued to earn his livelihood, he mastered the art of working in the hardware shop quickly.

“They paid me Rs 1600 for a month in the beginning. My understanding skills and enthusiasm to learn new skills helped me to grow as a person. I worked in the shop for four years. In those four years, looking at my hard work, the owner increased my monthly salary from Rs 1600 to Rs 8000. This helped me and my family financially,” Gopal added.

He traveled 15 km daily on the bus from his house to the shop. On his way, he saw many school and college-going students holding bags, books and entering the institutes’ gate. This made him unhappy.

He added, “Looking at college-going students made me unhappy. I wanted to be one of them. With the help of a few close friends, I thought of resuming my academic studies and convinced his family too.”

After a gap of 4 years, he completed HSC in the Arts stream and scored 68%.

“Even if I took admission in class 12, I had to continue my job because of financial issues. For doing a part-time job after lectures, they paid me Rs 4000 monthly. Besides this, I also sold bread in the morning before going to college,” said Gopal.

Later on, a villager helped him to choose an undergraduate course. Gopal, said, “I planned to take admission in Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) at Yavatmal and pursued it diligently. I am proud of myself because, in my family, I am the first person to pursue education beyond school. My primary aim to complete BSW was to get a good salary job where I can earn approximately Rs. 10,000. But during my BSW education, I learned about the social sector and development. It changed my way of thinking and so I wanted to study further.”

During his final year of BSW, he aimed at learning in higher educational institutes. But lack of knowledge, resources, and college’s insufficiency to provide guidance and exposure, lowered his self-confidence.

While he was in search of guidance, he met the Eklavya team in his college. Aimed at information dissemination and skill-building amongst students, Eklavya conducted guidance sessions. Lectures by resource persons and guest faculties were arranged. The Eklavya team organized one-to-one interaction to analyze individual strengths and interests.

Gopal participated in a few residential workshops held by Eklavya. Information on relevant post-graduate institutes was shared along with the application process and timelines. The study material was made available and the use of social media to gather further material was taught to the students by the team.

Gopal gives immense credit to sessions on communication skills and improved working knowledge of English.

“The communication sessions alleviated my fears of the English language and gave me the confidence to answer interviews in English.”

Eklavya’s mentoring support enabled Gopal, overcome all his fears and inhibitions. While he couldn’t clear the entrance exam on the first attempt in 2019, rather than taking a gap, with the help of Eklavya, Gopal planned to pursue studies and do an internship at Gandhi Research Foundation.

“I completed my six months studies with Gandhi Research Foundation in Jalgaon but due to the pandemic, I was not able to continue my internship with them. These six months help me to be confident, develop my personality. As most of the students came from across the country and few from foreign, I had no option but to interact with them in English. This helped me improve my English,” said Gopal.

He was able to clear the entrance exam in 2020 and secured a seat at Azim Premji University. Sharing a memory from his entrance exam where he was asked to write a 500 words essay in English, he said, “In my first-time attempt to appear for an entrance exam I couldn’t even manage to write a 150 words essay in English. But a year later, even after writing 500 words, I still wanted to write and express my thoughts more. 

Gopal, who is currently in the first year of MA, got admission to the institute and managed to get a 100 % scholarship for the course. The institute’s student aid has also fully funded his food and stay costs.

While he wants to make a good living for himself, he wishes to give his due to society by working with organizations that cater to the educational interests of underprivileged children.