A small survey but tells so much....

We did a survey of a few schools and collected data which we would like to share with you all here. The schools are all in Andhra Pradesh--a couple of them around Hyderabad and a few in far flung districts. The schools are all sad looking in terms of infrastructure (old story) but that doesn't stop most of the teachers from giving their best. Every visit, every story, every interaction motivates us to be able to do what we set out to do.

I tell my colleagues that visiting schools every once in a while should be mandatory for everyone including our engineers. Most of us do know that there are problems out there but unless you see and hear for yourself you remain impersonal. The whole thing has been tedious--sometimes slow but when I see the students over the video or in their classroom with smiles from ear to ear just happy that someone is trying to do something special for them. Or that's what I'd like to think :) I've heard teachers and volunteers commented many a times 'these children are not at all interested in studies' but I tell ya kids are really smart--they know when someone's doing something 'nice' for them. They make the effort to learn. There are exceptions of course.

So do check out the survey data and you'll see why making EFF a success is so crucial. Not for us but for them.

District – RR district                                                             

Mandal – Tandur

This is a survey  of  some schools in Tandur. It is 125km from Hyderabad. Tandur is a town, has BSNL broadband connectivity in the entire Mandal. We visited four schools.

Name of the school	Address	Medium	Strength	Staff
1. Govt High School No.1	Saipur, Tandur	Telugu / Urdu Success schools(E/M)	657	19
				Vacc - 20
2. Govt High School	Tandur	Telugu / Urdu	410	12+4(V.V)
				Vacc – 11
3. Govt Girls High School	Kallalgally, Old Tandur	Urdu/ Success schools(E/M)	700	10
				Vacc – 7
4. Govt High School	Malreddy pally	Telugu/Success school(E/M)	424	6 + 5(V.V)
				Vacc – 8

District : Ranga Reddy                                                                                                                   

Mandal : Quthbullapur

We visited 3 schools in Quthbullapur mandal.

School	Address	Medium	Strength	Staff
1.Z.P.H.S	Suraram Colony	Telugu	Boys and girls 600	17 1 vaccancy
2. Z.P.H.S	*Suraram Village	Telugu	B & G 350	12
3. Z.P.H.S	Shapoor Nagar	Telugu	B & G 450	14

District: Nalgonda                                                                                                                           

Mandal: Choutuppal

We visited 3 schools in the  Choutuppal Mandal.

School	Address	Medium	Strength	Staff
1.Z.P.H.S.	*Choutuppal	School & Telugu	B & G 571	20
2. A.P.Residential School for Girls(Gurukul Pathashala)	Bangarigadda, Nr Govt Hospital Choutuppal	English & Telugu	Girls 400	20
3. Kasturba Gandhi Balikala Vidyalayam	Bangarigadda, Nr Govt Hospital Choutuppal	English	Girls 48	7 3 vacancies

Schools for the new academic year.

A few more schools in Andhra Pradesh will have the Virtual Classroom from the coming academic year. After a tedious research, visiting schools, several meetings with Mandal heads, principals, teachers,we shortlisted a few that we thought needed our initiative the most.

I must thank our volunteers and our EFF teacher and Co-ordinator Ambica Ayla for making sure we found the right schools in terms of infrastructure--Internet, electricity, co-operation from the school and so on. They braved the 45 degree heat and dust and walked around the villages meeting teachers, parents and students--It's vacation time but they wanted to make sure they get a feel of what what they needed.

We will have more action this academic year, our engineers are geared up too. Some of their weekends would be with the Virtual Classroom as we add more schools to the EFF community--the committed and inspired lot that they are would rather give their time for EFF than the movies and Biryani ;)

Some of the schools:

Shapur Zilla Parishad School A.P

Ambica and a teacher inspecting the room for Virtual Classroom.

Suraram Village Zilla Parishad School A.P