After functioning for nine years Babar Ali’s school showed remarkable progress. There were sixty regular attendees and over two hundred and twenty students on roll call and eight hundred students in total. There were ten volunteer teachers teaching grades 1 through 8. The school had been registered and recognized by the West Bengal State Government.
However, behind this stupendous achievement is seen the help and support of the society also. When the general public started spreading the news of Babar Ali’s school, many people came forward to strengthen the functioning of the school. Babar’s own teachers, monks at the local Ramakrishna Mission, sympathetic IAS officers and local cops lent their assistance in teaching the students. When he thought of the mid-day meal scheme, Babar’s father provided rice from his fields initially and later Babar’s friends in the government administration got it sanctioned and supplied it from government stock. Even women were not lagging behind in lending a helping hand.
A lady by name Tulu Rani Hazra, clad in widow’s white robes, a fishmonger by profession, played the role of an educationalist in the afternoons. She went around the villages and brought back students who had stopped attending school. She brought back nearly eighty such students. Thus one can see how Babar Ali has successfully shown to the people that with societal help and encouragement we can help ourselves even in fields like education which is generally believed to be a profession of only educated people.
