Picture this – every Friday, students of Akshar School in Assam gather like eco-warriors on a mission. They arrive, a week’s worth of collected plastic, their arms and pockets full of discarded bottles, wrappers and more.
Located in a green area of Pamohi area of the state, this school does not want to compensate its students by giving money. Instead, they only accept plastic as a fee!
Founded in 2016 by Parmita Sarma and Majin Mukhtar, this school in the heart of Assam’s green paradise has successfully turned education into an adventure and fees into a promise of a brighter, more sustainable future.
“We want to break the cycle of poverty and make the generation from underprivileged environment sensitive. Education is the only means by which these goals can be achieved,” says Paramita Sarma, founder of Akshar School. Uttam India.
The couple has so far collected and recycled 1,200 bottles and 643,600 plastic wrappers from school children. Additionally, the school follows a unique style of education where they place students in grades according to their academic merit and not their age as in traditional schools.
Making education accessible to all
Born in Mumbai, Parmita mostly grew up in Guwahati, Assam. “Since childhood, I had an inclination to work for others. My family was very politically aware, which pushed me into the path of social work,” she says.
“After graduating in social work, I decided to work in the education sector because of my belief that education is an integral part of the process of breaking the cycle of poverty. I wanted to open a free school,” she added.
In 2013, Parmita was in Lakhimpur to work for renowned Assamese singer and social activist Bhupen Hazarika, when she met Majin. “From our conversation at Bhupun Hazarika’s school, we realized how we wanted to open a school that would help underprivileged children access quality education,” she says.
It laid the foundation of Akshar Vidyalaya. At that time, we could not buy land and build a school. My mother donated the land and some money to open the school,’ she says.
The school today is located in Pamohi and provides free education to its students. “We started with just 10 students because the villagers did not want their children to study. Instead, they wanted to work. We were very reassured to get those ten children to school as well,” she recalls.
Today the school is full of 150 children. How did they achieve that? Well, they came up with an interesting solution. While designing different courses, the couple talked to some students and discovered what formed the foundation for their unique ideas.
“The children said they used to burn plastic bags and bottles to keep themselves warm in winter. It was horrible and we decided it needed to end,” she said.
This is when the idea of collecting plastic came to the couple.
“We asked all our children to collect plastic throughout the week and bring in at least 25 plastics by the end of the week. At first no one took us seriously. When we told them it was their fee, the students gradually started bringing plastic every Friday,” she says.
Along with this, the founders came up with another path breaking solution to help the local unemployment situation. “We have seen that many children have started dropping out of school to work as daily wage earners. We decided to make those children work in the school and pay them to go to school,” explains Parmita.
She continues, “As students progress to the upper grades, we assign suitable individuals to teach the lower grades under supervision. For this service, we pay them. This way our children are motivated to study well and become ‘student teachers’ and earn pocket money too,” she says.
This model helped them gain more presence. “By the end of 2016, we had about 200 students waiting to join the school,” she says.
Paramita said that even though the model does good work for the school, parents take money from their children’s earnings for personal expenses, including buying alcohol. To address this problem, the school decided to replace cash with points.
Each point, for example, 50 points represents 50 rupees, ensuring that the amount is spent only on the needs of the child. The school also partnered with local candy and clothing stores that allowed students to use their points there. The school management then settles the bills in cash on their behalf. This system has protected the students and their hard earned money.
“This way we can ensure that the money is spent only on the needs of the children,” says Parmita.
Additionally, the school also has a bank. “It was introduced to teach children the importance of money management and saving money. Children can collect and save their weekly points in the bank. They can continue to collect them and even buy expensive things. For example, many children saved for months and the money bought a mobile phone. able to afford,” she says.
‘learning by doing’
The school is affiliated to the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
“At Akshar School, we place students in grade levels based on aptitude tests. So, if a student excels in 6th-grade math, that’s where they’ll study. But if they’re more comfortable with third-grade science, they’ll focus on that,” Parmita said. She tells
This approach gives older students who previously could not attend school due to poverty the opportunity to study and learn at their own pace, she notes. “It helped us connect better with those older kids as well,” she says.
When Yuvraj Kashyap (now 20) joined Akshar School as a student in 2018, he was impressed by the school’s unique curriculum and fee policy. “It was a true paradigm shift in every sense,” recalls Yuvraj in conversation best india His eyes are sparkling with excitement.
Yuvraj, now all set to take his NIOS board exams next month, recalls his experience, “The curriculum was a far cry from what I had experienced in my previous school. They were not just interested in filling our heads with facts; they were dedicated to nurturing our holistic development. And best of all The upside is that they didn’t ask for a single rupee in fees.”
Another feature of their curriculum is that the school focuses on the holistic development of children. “We just want to make sure that when they get out of here, they’re ready for the world. We have a lot of vocational training-based courses for kids to learn. We teach them carpentry, solar panel fitting, electrical work, tailoring, gardening and landscaping, ‘ she says.
Our philosophy is ‘learning through doing’ and this course is exactly what we want to do, adds the couple.
Recycling of plastics into solids
They have also set up a recycling plant in the campus. “The plant recycles recyclable plastics and converts them into eco-bricks. Our children learn how to transform plastic into bricks and work on plants after school. We pay them for that too. This way they can learn more skills,’ she says.
Eco-ints are then used in small buildings around the school.
“We are also using machines from the Netherlands. The machine upcycles the plastic into usable items. We have to put the melted plastic into different patterns and the machine turns it into pots, planters, keys, earnings etc,” she said.
“There are only certain types of plastics that we can use around children and the rest we send to other recycling companies,” explains Mazin.
Seeing the success of their school, the couple decided to expand their curriculum.
“We collaborated with a residential school in Delhi for orphans and our curriculum worked successfully with them. Although we wanted to expand it to more schools in Delhi, the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to our plans and we had to call our team back to Assam,” she says.
the way forward
In 2021, the couple approached several schools in Assam and signed an MoU with the state government to replicate their educational model in five government schools. Currently, the couple has implemented the model in 14 schools in Assam and hopes to reach 200 more by the end of 2025.
The couple was approached by the Asan government to help with the Swachh Bharat Mission.
“They recruited us to approach private schools and collect plastic from them. More than one lakh students are separating plastic at home, bringing it to their school and our team will collect it from them. The plastic will then be recycled at our centre, while some of it will be sent to other recycling centers in the state,” Mazin explains.
So far, the couple has taken 3,000 students through their school and by implementing their curriculum in 14 other schools, they have collected a total of 2,330 plastic bottles and 7,19,700 plastic wrappers.
If you are interested in their work, you can reach them here.
Edited by Padmashri Pandey.