Assam teacher Rajesh Bordoloi wins National Teachers’ Award for making students tutors to their mothers.

An Assam geography teacher is harnessing a routine school exercise into a community literacy initiative in which students are taking the lead role to tutor their mothers – from reading to making digital payments.

Rajesh Bordoloi, teacher of geography at Adarsha Tribal Higher Secondary School, Kalbari, Jorhat, introduced the _PROTECTED_FOREIGN_QUOTE_ initiative two years back after sensing a growing divide between digitally-savvy school children and illiterate mothers.

As part of the programme, students in Class 10 take their lessons outside the classroom, to become tutors for their mothers. They educate them on basics such as literacy as well as digital payments, mobile banking and how to navigate digital services, from phones to UPI.

The initiative has seen the geography teacher awarded the National Teachers’ Award – he is one of 48 educators to receive it for his contribution to education.

“When a child becomes a teacher at home, education becomes a shared journey,” said Bordoloi, describing the initiative and its impact on the community. He spoke of seeing his students patiently guide their mothers through technology and digital payments.

The initiative has a strong tribal-community angle. Around nine of every 10 students involved in the programme are from the agriculture-dependent Mising community spread out across Majuli and its vicinity. It began in Kalbari and has since spread to surrounding villages – Banhphala, Bhekelichapori, Dhankhuli, Laliti Chapori Gaon and Sarigharia.

The initiative has also helped overcome a hurdle of its own: parents’ hesitance towards technology.

The school now uses government-owned smart boards during parent-teacher meetings to show their children digital technology and help them get familiar with it.

For many of these mothers, it’s not only about learning to use a phone or pay digitally. Through the initiative, Bordoloi has also tried to involve children in their parents’ lives. It was part of his way to make education a shared experience and to motivate people to encourage their children to stay in school.

His community involvement goes beyond helping parents develop digital literacy skills. Bordoloi has also been campaigning against child marriages, which has historically been a problem in communities where minor girls have been forced out of school and away from making a future for themselves, opting to elope with their suitors. His efforts began in Bhekelichapori, and have since been part of his engagement with students and parents in his community.

For Bordoloi, the recognition is not a personal achievement but an affirmation of his community’s effort towards making better education accessible to all.

“This award is for my school, colleagues, students, parents and community,” Bordoloi said.

The initiative provides a simple template for how schools can go beyond the conventional boundaries of the classroom and engage students in not just learning but also teaching, as well as connecting with their families.