About two years back, I visited a few schools located in rural areas in India for work. The state primary schools in rural locations have classes from First Standard to Fifth Standard and generally, one or two teachers are posted in one school. The number of classrooms varies as per norms from state to state. If there are two rooms, generally, students from standard first to standard third are accommodated in one room and the other for standard fourth and fifth students.

I came across a state primary school. Only one teacher was posted in that school.  The school was exceptionally neat. The walls of the school had wall paintings of the solar system, different types of foods with their nutritional qualities, alphabets, and other children-friendly paintings. The teacher said that he along with the students made these wall paintings. The school had a functional drinking water facility and clean functional toilet blocks, which is not a common scenario for many state-run schools in rural locations. The teacher showed enthusiasm for his work.

During the same visit, I came across another school that had much scope for improvement in terms of cleanliness. The teacher during the conversation indicated often that the school is for economically poor students, so the infrastructure was poor. But as an outsider, I could see that the basic infrastructure of two classrooms, one toilet block with tap water, and drinking water infrastructure were the same in both schools. Qualification of teachers is almost similar in all the state-run primary schools.

In spite of the similar infrastructure, the schools were strikingly different in appearance to any visitor. The reason was the attitude of the teacher. A positive attitude of one teacher has the ability to impact many little lives. The children irrespective of their locations, rural or urban, or irrespective of their economic background deserve education and care. Positive attitudes along with qualifications are important to make a school infrastructure a happy educational place for our little minds.