This private school in Guwahati takes plastic waste for fees

By: Vishal Das
GUWAHATI: A young couple from Assam has set up a school with a unique enrolment criterion — students must collect and bring 25 items of plastic waste every week. The plastic waste is then processed by the students at the recycling unit on the premises and turned into ecological bricks, which are used for developing the campus infrastructure.
Akshar Forum — the model school in Guwahati’s Gorchuk area — was established in June 2016 by Mazin Mukhtar and his wife Parmita Sarma.It has 110 students, aged from four to 15, who come from the nearby villages. Mazin arrived in India from New York in 2013 for a school project. He met Parmita, a student of social work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, while working in the education sector.
“Many dropouts were working in factories and stone quarries from a very young age, in very difficult conditions. We decided to set up a school that will suit their financial needs while providing them quality education,” Mukhtar said. The school also follows a unique teaching method where teenagers in poverty are paid to teach the students, a strategy that reduces cost and keeps teens in school. The curriculum of specifically aims to combine conventional academics with vocational training.