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India, Sept. 4 -- Ahmedabad Municipal School No 2, in the slums of Nawa Wadaj, looks like any other municipal school. Climb the stairs to the third floor, however, and you find children in a colourful room with games, puzzles and educational toys, watching educational films and audio-visual (AV) programs, or picking up the basics of computers.
Innovative 'playway' pedagogy, more seen in private schools, have been introduced as supplementary education in this school by Janki Vasant of Samvedana, a charitable institution for better education and health for slum kids.
Hailing from a political family, Vasant started social work at community centres in the slums of Wadaj, providing informal education to children of labourers lodged at the creches there. "Wadaj has some of Ahmedabad's largest slums and refugee colonies. I found children going to government schools here could write, by copying from a blackboard or book, but had no reading comprehension whatsoever. However, when...