To Get A Headstart

State-sponsored residential schools for backward class children are a big hit

- Amarnath K. Menon

Satvika D., a Class VI student at the new BC Welfare residential school at Keesara in Malkajgiri district, was reluctant to go home when the school broke for Dussehra holidays on Sept ember 20. And she wasn’t alone. Classmate P. Kiranmayee too wanted to stay back. The girls are doing well—learning, playing, living carefree lives, in a manner unimaginable back home. Satvika is the eldest of three children of an autorickshaw driver. Kiranmayee’s father is a hamali (porter). They are among 28,560 girls and boys of backward class (BC) families admitted this June to 119 English-medium residential schools of the Mahatma Jyothiba Phule Telangana Backward Classes Welfare Residential Education Society.