Malati Murmu, a tribal woman from Jiling Sereng village in Purulia, West Bengal, has turned her personal experience of educational hardship into a grassroots effort to keep children learning. After moving to the village around 2019–20, Malati saw children struggling with access to education, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, she began teaching children for free from her own mud house. What started with around 8–10 children has now grown into a community-supported learning centre serving around 60 students, according to the latest available report.
Her initiative is built around a simple idea: children should first be able to learn comfortably in the language they understand. Malati teaches primarily in Santali, including through the Ol Chiki script, before gradually introducing Bengali and English. She also teaches subjects such as mathematics and science. Her morning classes generally run for around two to two-and-a-half hours, after which children attend formal school. The centre primarily caters to primary-school children, with earlier reports identifying students from Classes 1–4.
From Her Own Struggle To A Village Classroom
Malati’s commitment to education is rooted in her own childhood. She reportedly walked around 3 km to attend primary school in neighbouring Shushnidi village and continued her studies up to Class 12. Financial and family circumstances eventually prevented her from pursuing higher education.
After coming to Jiling Sereng, she encountered children facing many of the same barriers. The distance to higher schools, poverty, limited infrastructure and the disruption caused by COVID-19 made continuing education difficult. During the pandemic, when schools closed and online learning became common, many children in the village lacked smartphones, internet access and the resources needed to study from home.
Instead of waiting for a formal solution, Malati began teaching them herself. She initially opened her mud house to a handful of children. She also went from home to home, speaking with parents and encouraging them to send their children to learn. As more families began supporting the idea, villagers helped develop the initiative into a small school-like learning space with mud walls, a tin roof and blackboards.
Learning In A Child’s Mother Tongue
One of the defining features of Malati’s approach is her emphasis on Santali, the language spoken by many children in the community.
Rather than expecting children to immediately adapt to Bengali or English, she uses their mother tongue as a foundation for learning. The centre also introduces Bengali and English so students can gradually navigate the languages used in formal education.
Her approach reflects a larger challenge faced by children in remote tribal communities: the distance between a child’s home language and the language of formal schooling can itself become a barrier to learning. Malati’s classroom attempts to bridge that gap from the grassroots.
The centre is not intended to replace formal government schooling. Instead, children attend her morning classes and subsequently go to school, allowing her lessons to function as additional academic support and foundational learning.
Education Without A Salary
The most striking part of Malati’s work is that she continues teaching without receiving a regular salary for it. The centre has largely operated without institutional funding, while the family itself faces financial challenges. Her husband, Banka Murmu, works in agriculture, and Malati balances teaching with farming, household responsibilities and raising their two children.
She has also been seen teaching while carrying her one-year-old child, an image that has come to represent the personal sacrifices behind the initiative. Despite these constraints, she has continued to teach.
Malati has approached government officials, including the BDO and SDO, seeking assistance for the centre. While she says assurances were given, the expected financial support did not materialise. She has continued seeking institutional assistance as the number of students has grown.
A Community Effort, Not A One-Woman Story
Although Malati’s initiative began inside her own home, its growth has involved the wider community. Villagers helped develop the learning space, while parents gradually became more supportive of sending their children to her classes. The centre now has two rooms and blackboards, although students still largely sit on the floor and basic facilities remain limited.
The challenges extend beyond the classroom. According to reports, students seeking secondary education face considerable distance barriers. Jhalda is around 18 km away, while a high school in Baghmundi is around 25 km away, making the transition beyond primary education particularly difficult for children from the village.
This means Malati’s work addresses an immediate learning gap, but the community continues to need broader educational infrastructure and accessible secondary schooling.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Education is often measured through buildings, classrooms, examination results and technology. Malati Murmu’s story offers a reminder that sometimes the first step towards education is simply creating a place where children can learn.
She began with a mud house, a blackboard and a handful of students. Six years later, around 60 children are reportedly attending her free learning centre. Her use of Santali, followed by Bengali and English, also shows how education can become more accessible when it begins with the language and lived reality of the child.
But Malati’s story is not only about one determined teacher. It also highlights the structural challenges that remain in rural and tribal education—poverty, distance, inadequate resources and the difficult transition from primary to secondary schooling.
Her journey demonstrates what grassroots initiative can achieve, but it also raises a larger question: Can communities, governments and education systems come together to ensure that children like those in Jiling Sereng do not have to depend on one person’s sacrifice for their right to learn?
Also Read: How Mittal Patel Built VSSM to Champion India’s Nomadic Tribes
