A village school is held in a small building. It has hardly more than two or three rooms. Sometimes it has only one big room, under shady trees. The boys sit on ‘mats’ and sometimes on the bare ground under shady trees. There are only one or two teachers who teach all the four or five infant classes.
The students generally belong to poor families. They are very poorly dressed. They are generally dirty and bare-footed. Their noses are often found running and they seldom wash themselves. In the school there are no arrangements for bathing and washing.
The village school master is an important man in the village. His word is law for the villagers. He is a teacher, post master, doctor and judge. He is low paid. He is simple in habits and dress. He is harsh and strict towards his students. They are terribly afraid of him.
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He sits on a cot and teaches all the classes one by one. He works hard with his students. He is devoted to his work. He is afraid of the inspecting officers of the Education Department. He prepares the classes day and night and the school premises are also swept neat and clean when an inspector is to visit the school. After the visit, he is again free and rests on his oars.
He is also in charge of the village sub post office. He delivers the mail to the villagers and also writes letters and other documents for them. He reads out the newspapers to the villagers. They think and believe that he is the only person who can give them up-to-date information about what is going on in other parts of the world.
The villagers carry all their disputes and troubles to him. He acts as the judge. His decision is generally accepted. He gives legal advice in their law-suits. He also acts as a doctor. He distributes quinine and other simple drugs among the villagers when some epidemic breaks out. The ailing villagers often consult him and he prescribes simple medicines for them.
The villagers have implicit faith in him. They supply him most of his needs. He is contented with his lot and wishes for nothing better. He is proud of his position in the village and sometimes gives himself airs.In rural areas, where schools are more distant, families’ daily time-space arrangements are organised around the schools. When local schools are closed, the management of these daily arrangements is stretched even further as families face longer distances to services and new challenges in organising their daily lives. This article focuses on how the closure of rural schools impacts on the everyday lives of families and how a local school serves as a hub for children, parents, and others in the community. This case study was conducted over the course of several years, through field studies and interviews with families (parents and children) and policy-makers before and after two schools were closed. Specifically, the study examines how school closures affect everyday life in rural communities using a time-geographical approach to account for the complex patterns of daily activities, which are determined by local daily practices and social, economic, and geographical structures. By focusing on the rural school as a time-space hub, the analysis reveals that everyday life is organised around the school, which serves as the hub of activities where social networks are created and strengthened. The time-spatial analysis showed that school closures were seen very differently in the local community. The municipal council considered the school closures to be beneficial to the community, but families expressed a loss of life quality when they had to travel longer distances. The families also pointed towards the loss of social networks, thus given them less meaning and flexibility in their everyday lives. The analysis also highlights the potential of adding a time-geographical analysis to local policy-making, in particular in rural areas.
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