Puducherry government schools get a beautiful makeover

It’s a programme that aims to beautify, brighten and spruce up the marred walls of under-developed schools by painting them artistically and writing messages based on environmental and social themes.

“As we know, education in the country is getting privatised and this leads to force shut down of government schools. Public education is indispensable — a huge section of society solely depends on this and it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to enroll their children in private institutions. Many parents have this mindset that whatever the expenses might be, they wanted their children to study in private primary schools.

The reason they state is the lack of infrastructure (beautiful school building, tidy campus, etc),” says Mageshwar, the president of the initiative.

The team doesn’t hope to bring a miracle to the government education method. “We paint the school walls to attract children and make them enroll in the school. If there is a decent headcount in a school, the government will not close it. This helps the locals to provide education for their children,” he adds. 

The team selects the schools that need immediate attention and does a research about it. Then it approaches the management and gets permission to paint the school walls. “We use different themes such as general knowledge, entertainment, awareness, and quotations that would include Thirukural , Bharathiyar verses, with a strong social message. In the process of revamping these walls, we make art accessible to the students and create awareness about important social issues as well.”

The Paint Pondicherry team feels that the aesthetical quality of the school is also important for learning outcomes. The freshly painted and aesthetically pleasing wall is associated with increased levels of student engagement and, therefore, increased levels of learning. 

“Apart from schools, we also paint the abandoned and dirty walls in and around Puducherry, where we want to create a clean ambiance, cleanliness and brightened streets. This would help in increasing the visibility during the night hours and also avoid public nuisances.” The core members of the team include Manoj PR, Sankari R, Thinesh, Arvindh, Uma Shankar, Sathya and Gowtham.