Willkommen: Children of a Beed village greet visitors in fluent German Premium

“At a time when Marathi medium students are struggling to speak English fluently, our students are honing their German language skills.”

On a hot Friday morning at a government upper primary school in Maharashtra’s drought-hit Beed district, over two dozen students from Classes VII to IX are seated on colourful mats on the floor of their classroom, eagerly waiting for the clock to strike 11.

Soon, Kedar Jadhav, 39, a native of Sangli district who works at a multinational company in Munich, Germany, appears on their projector screen and begins taking lessons in German.

The students have created a flutter in their village, Umrad Khalsa, by rattling off full sentences in the foreign language, much to the astonishment of local residents. Located around 12 km from Beed town, the village did not have much to boast about, but now their children are making heads turn.

“At a time when Marathi medium students are struggling to speak English fluently, our students are honing their German language skills,” says Vikas Mahendra Pardeshi, the school’s headmaster.

Last November, Mr. Pardeshi was scrolling through his Facebook feed when he chanced upon a video of Mr. Jadhav teaching German. “I immediately messaged him and requested him to teach the language to our students. Mr. Jadhav readily agreed and our first online class began on November 26 last year,” the headmaster says, adding that classes are held every Tuesday and Friday.

“I found it challenging to convince the parents to allow their children to learn a foreign language as it is not a part of the curriculum. I told them about the importance of acquiring new skills and picking up new languages,” Mr. Pardeshi says.

Fifteen of the school’s 186 students have now completed the A1 level and have achieved basic conversational proficiency. The students say learning German is fun. “It is so exciting to learn new words and remember them,” says Arthi Vinod Jadhav, a Class VIII student.