A Case Study: Lakshmi Priya Borah

Lakshmi Priya Borah lives in a village called Jharabari which is located in the Lakhimpur district. She is a student of the 3rd grade and lives together with her parents: Her father, Mr. Jhadav Borah, who works as a daily wage earner and her mother, Mrs. Putali Borah, who is a housewife.  Pratham facilitator, Pinky Saikia, first met Borah in a Learning Camp. After observing that Lakshmi Priya Borah went irregularly to school and libraries activities, she conducted baseline assessment in which Borah could not read letters or recognize numbers from 1 to 9. In order to understand the reasons behind her observations Saikia visited Borah’s family and interacted with Borah. She discovered that her poor learning levels are interrelated to shyness to make friends at school and the irregularity in attending school. Additionally, she learned that due to the family’s financial short-comings and educational background, Borah’s parents did not show a keen interest in their daughter’s education. Saikia discussed the significance of education in the present social milieu with Borah’s parents and created a group for the library village in Borah’s house and requested Mrs. Putali Borah to volunteer in the group which she agreed upon. As discussed Lakshmi Priya Borah started attending school regularly. Moreover, her parents started showing an interest in her educational activities and the teachers of the school took utmost care of Lakshmi. After these intervention, Borah is now able to read a paragraph fluently and solve addition and subtraction problems.