Click to play videoPatnitop/Mansar (Jammu): The nomadic tribe of Gujjars and Bakerwals of Jammu and Kashmir want to keep up with fast changing technology even if they are constantly on the move.
Eleven-year-old Arshad Ali is awestruck by the latest addition to his mobile school's arsenal — a laptop.
Normally, this is a school under the open skies, with nature for company.
Like Ali, many of his schoolmates who belong to the Gujjar Bakerwal tribe, now have the chance to learn the freedom of cyberspace.
They are already excited about what the have learned. “We make pictures on Microsoft Word,” says one of the students, Ahmad.
“Painting is my hobby so I make pictures. I learned Microsoft Word and Powerpoint,” says Ali.
“We write our names in power point and make a slideshow,” says another student, Guzalla Abbas.
The laptops been provided to the mobile schools on an experimental basis by the Jammu University. The concept of mobile schools for the nomads was started way back in 1970s.
But over the years, many schools had to be closed down due to militancy and a high drop-out rate.
Experts feel a touch of modernism and innovation can persuade more children to join in and from the looks of it, the plan is working.
“Our kids had not seen anything like this. When they saw a laptop for the first there were curious and started taking interest in school. Our kids live out in the open. They had never seen things like a movie. They had never heard about typing. They are happy to see something like this,” said a teacher at the Government Primary Mobile School, Mohammad Ababs.
The children here have only been used to open skies and green pastures but now they can click and enter into a world of a different kind-a world where they can open windows to technology from the mobile schools around Jammu.
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