The Indian Express visited some of these summer camps in villages of Sirmour. Enthusiasm among the children at Jogiban village near Nahan could be seen as despite heavy rains, they made their way to attend the “special tuition”, as many called it. Books and blackboards made way for colourful learning kits, games, rhymes and play-grounds. This pedagogic approach helped to attract and retain students like Kamlesh. “On the first day I saw the kids playing interesting games and the teacher didi explained to me that the kids are learning to read. This made me join the classes,” she says.

“The children are engrossed in special games that help them identify numbers, alphabets and words as well as the story-telling and paragraph reading sessions,” said Nisha, a shiksha sarthi at one such camp in Bankala.

The comparison of pre and post summer camp results of 1.6 lakh students in 8,874 villages, show an improvement of 15 per cent in overall reading capability of children. Learning capability in terms of numbers and letters has seen an improvement of 13 per cent.