RURAL DEVELOPMENT CENTRE: RECONFIGURING COMMUNITY SCHOOLS HODAL, HARYANA

Abstract

India is a vast country with various socio-cultural communities and has a huge disparity in terms of access to education. Most teaching/ skill development centers in India lack the ability to include the different communities present in the country, owing to the differences in their socio-economic structures. Standard teaching methods and classroom designs fail to integrate the communities within them. Education in India, is seen as a very standardized process, where children are enrolled in schools at the primary levels and expected to follow the streamlined process. However, with more emphasis and the growing needs on education and skill development, there is still a lack of inclusion of rural communities in the process. There are many arguments in the research about the optimal teaching and learning spaces and their contribution to improving community engagement. These range from those who advocate de-schooling: pulling down the walls, to those who propose open space arrangements, to those whose research reports the benefits of more traditional classroom arrangements. This thesis aims to study the impact of community schools and how relevant they stand with respect to this issue. The thesis aims to explore how a Rural Development Centre acts as community space and how they have the potential to be centers for not just learning, but also for working, participating, interacting and helping improve the situation of community upliftment in rural areas. Keywords: Alternative Learning, Community Regeneration, Community Ties, Development Centre, Rural Development.