Teacher Buys A Bus, Becomes Bus Driver – All To Ensure Kids Do Not Drop Out!

India’s Karnataka state is home to a hero teacher named Rajaram. Students in the Baarali village in Udupi, India, began dropping out of the Baarali Government Higher Primary School because they had to make a 3 kilometer walk through the woods each day to get to school. Their science and mathematics teacher, Rajaram, said, “There are no roads from the houses of the children to the school. There is a mud path through the forest and most of the girl students began dropping out as their families were scared of allowing their children to walk for a total of 6 km to and from school.”

Rajaram was not sure about what to do because he kept seeing kids dropping out of school. Rajaram says, “The children were dropping out quickly and with the head count in our school falling low, we were at the threat of shutting down too. One evening, I had finished counting how many children had dropped out and I was upset. Every week at least five to six students were not turning up. I called up one of our former students – Vijay Hegde and proposed the idea of buying a bus to pick up and drop the children.”

Rajaram fuels, insures, and pays for all the maintenance of the bus. Every morning Rajaram makes 4 trips to pick up students and get them all to school by 9:30 (school starting time).

“The school starts at 9.30 am and I make sure that all students are on time. There are three teachers including me and a headmistress in our school. One of the teachers comes to school before the students from the first trip reach school. The teachers stay back in school until all the students are dropped off and I come back to park the bus,” Rajaram says.