Every morning in Panchet’s Zilla Parishad Cluster School, Headmistress Shabana Javed Khan watches the same scene unfold: tiny figures emerging from a shiny yellow school bus, entering the gate of the school and moving towards their classrooms. Now they have separate painted classrooms, covered textbooks, benches, chalkless smartboards and their own terrace garden where they grow chillies and pumpkins. “The students are very talented beyond their studies, but were never exposed to opportunities…some students are joining school for the first time”, said Ms. Khan.

The Zilla Parishad Panchet Cluster School is a merger of five to six schools in neighboring hamlets. It is an example from Maharashtra of a widely implemented and much debated initiative of government school mergers.

Panchet, a sc

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