Walkathon

A recent survey unveiled that there are around 793 million adult illiterates in the world- mostly from third world countries. Out of which, two thirds are women[Source: Wikipedia]. According to 2011 census, Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) stands 24^th in literacy ranking out of 28 states in India. It’s a huge 7% difference compared to the national’s 74.04%. A.P.’s government has come up with many programs to eradicate illiteracy; however the progress is languishing at a snail’s pace.

We, the EFF team initiated an event-Walkathon, supported by PurpleTalk Inc, with a cause: ‘EDUCATE A CHILD’. The walk was about appealing to people of the nation to educate a child as a contribution to society. Here ‘educating’ doesn’t mean we have to go to a class and teach; there are so many ways to volunteer towards eradicating illiteracy from the nation, such as–          

·         Sponsor a child’s education.
·         Adopt a classroom.
·         Counsel parents of the drop outs.
·         Organize education awareness programs in slums/rural areas.
·         People passionate about teaching can teach students remotely using technology.
·         Visit a school nearby to figure out their problems.

Along with EFF one more NGO joined the event, it is ‘MAD’ (Make a Difference) which is working towards empowering underprivileged children through education.

Details of the event:

Date: 25-Jan-2013

Time: 4pm onwards

Venue: KBR Park, Banjara Hills, Hyderad

Pamphlet

Snaps from the event: 

In front of KBR Park

Giving a brief explanation about EFF and MAD

Volunteers cheering J

Busy bees take out time to join the walk!

And that was a never ending line; people were joining in at every corner of the walk!

Distributing the pamphlets to passersby

No one can stop us!

And that was a fantastic evening, with pleasant climate!

Everyone had a lot of fun along with the walk! 

Milestone in the schooling segment – the Tenth std.

‘SSC’ the other name of Tenth std. in A.P., India

Schooling is an important phase in an individual’s life. You can play, enjoy, and have fun along with studies in this period. However, things are not the same always; you have to really slog it out towards the end of the segment, viz in tenth std.  “Tenth std (SSC) is the turning point in your life, you have to cut down on your recreations and devote 100% time to studies.”, say parents in a strict tone. At school, SSC students don’t have games/pt period. They won’t take part in cultural activities; “if they participate in all the cultural programmes like dance, drama/skit, singing etc, their precious time will be wasted, so, it’s better to curb all entertainment for SSC students”, assert the teachers.  Some crazy parents challenge the tutor – sir, if you make my child score at least 85%, I will reward you with 10k bucks. “It’s a prestigious issue, my daughter and my colleague’s daughter are in tenth standard; if my child gets a low score, how can I show my face to her?” says a working mother. “Do or die, you must score above 90% in the final exams otherwise it’s really difficult to get admission in a good senior secondary school”, says a middle class father.

Private schools progression -

Some or many private schools have moved a step forward – in the ninth standard itself they start teaching tenth std. syllabus. Actually, in the ninth standard, the academic year is somewhat like this – the first 4 months they will teach the 9^th std syllabus (term end exams are omitted or skipped), then remaining year they are taught tenth std syllabus. They almost finish teaching the syllabus of tenth in the 9^th standard itself. So, the question is, what do they do in the tenth standard? Here, is an interesting answer – in the entire academic year (10th standard) they’ll be revising the entire syllabus at least four times. Conduct so many tests, term-end exams, mock board exams etc. It’s all fair in the race for grades in this competitive generation- ascertain the [corporate] school managements.

But, 9th standard syllabi has plenty of aspects which are useful to students in higher standards. Omission of these topics lead them to suffer later for the lack of knowledge. It’s nothing but a gamble on the students’ future in favor of just one exam (SSC)

The Board Exam

Tenth std students have to appear for board exams in the month of March every year. Though the government has been planning to change the exam system for more than a decade, we hardly see any changes in it. There is tight security in the exam halls with ample invigilators; however, malpractice cases are on the high every year. It’s a known bitter fact, that due to pressure from parents and teachers, certain number of tenth std students are ending their lives after failing to reach their parents’ assigned targets. It is not unusual to hear reports of  suicides the very next day after the declaration of results.

I wonder, is SSC that tough, to sacrifice all the happiest moments of our beautiful childhood...? Well, this is the scene in almost all the schools in A.P.  No limits to expectations. Parents, teachers and students, everyone wants scores, grades; this rat race is making the child an entity rather than a citizen. The need of the hour is to change the exam system, syllabus and approach to teaching as well. 

Virtual classrooms for UPTU

The UP Technical University will be starting online classes soon. This initiative is to overcome the teachers shortage problem they have been facing for sometime now. The university is facing a shortage of over 2,000 teaching staff. Its a project funded by the union ministry of information technology. Read the story here

"For conducting online interactive classrooms, we are setting up a virtual classroom hub at our Noida campus"

According to officials, the upcoming hub will beam teaching programmes to nearly 12 institutes that would have direct access.

The institutes will then extend the online facility to at least 25 colleges located in their vicinity.

Problems with the Indian public school system

Before we started developing the technology that we have right now, we did a lot of research—going to villages and talking to teachers, parents and students. We were aware of the various problems that have crippled the Government schools in India but getting a first hand experience of the whole scenario put things in a much better perspective for us.

Here is a far from exhaustive list of the main problems we saw in the Indian public school system:

1. Too many students and not enough teachers (Recruitment is slow, and there are many vacancies that go unfilled for years. Result? Unfair workload for existing teachers and corresponding decline in the quality of teaching.
2. Teachers need to work for all government programs, from election duty to pulse polio campaigns. At the expense of the children who come to school to learn.
3. Teachers are made to attend way too many training programs.. These mandatory programs need to fit into an already busy calendar, and teachers invariably do it at the expense of their students. Moreover, this training is often based on theories that do not take the real situation into account. With the real situation that teachers have to deal with-- the large number of students, the limited time available, the examination oriented focus of education, and the lack of facilities—this training proved to be irrelevant for the teachers.
4. Very high percentage of teachers are absent from schools. The reasons are varied, and include infrastructure, corruption and motivational issues.
5. There is supposed to be a teacher for every 40 students. Most administrators follow this to the letter: if a school only has 120 students then they only get 3 teachers even if the school actually has 5 classes or grades.
6. Serious infrastructure issues like power, lack of classrooms, lack of study material (Even textbooks--the minimal study material available to children--are usually delayed by 2-3 months every year.)
7. Lack of basic amenities like drinking water and toilets. It turns out that the lack of toilets is a major reason for female students’ absence from school.
8. Students do not put in any effort at home. Everything from lack of family encouragement to working after school, to lack of infrastructure at home (privacy, space, light, books) conspires to prevent children from studying at home. While many of these factors are not within the direct control of the teachers or of the educational system, little effort has been made to find an effective substitute for the system of assigning homework.
9. A very small percentage of the students coming out of our primary schools has basic reading and writing skills.

The list could go on, and I will be sure to elaborate on these various problems, as well as their impact and the urgent need for solutions in the near future. I’ve identified problems specific to the rural education system. Satya Meva Jayate’s detailed article offers a more general critique of the Indian education system in general.

Some pics with Amongla teacher :)

I see them all--each one from my desk in office



and they see me--loud and clear :)

as I teach away from the comfort of my desk...



Interaction at its heights. They love to talk. Like teacher like students.


(Click on the image for a better view.)

Chandigarh Govt. School

Government schools in India are synonymous to all things negative. Schools where parents wouldn’t dare to send their children unless they are from economically poor families. Sad that such is the case. However, I came across this article while browsing the Internet. Sounds unbelievable! I’d like to believe that there is hope—that people would fight for admissions in government schools irrespective of rich or poor.

Thanks to excellent results, low costs and upgraded technology, government schools in Chandigarh are way ahead of private ones when it comes to attracting the brightest brains.

In most parts of India, state-run schools are associated with poor infrastructure and unsatisfactory results. But that's not the case in Chandigarh where admissions began Tuesday.

With many students from the region preferring to opt for top government schools in the city, especially Classes 10, 11 and 12, getting admission in them is all the more difficult.

Even the students of elite private institutes opt for the government schools of Chandigarh when it comes to seeking admission in Class 11. Students from states like Haryana, Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are also applying to government schools here.

EFF's Virtual Classroom live in a school!

EFF Virtual Classroom went live on Friday the 18^th of July 2008 in Red Cross Govt. Girls' High School. After a year of research, planning and developing with immense passion and hard work, it was indeed a proud moment for all of us.

I taught the eighth graders from my office desk while they were seated in their school computer room. I could see them sitting systematically forming a pyramid like shape so that the camera could capture all of them. The moment they saw me in the projector they started giggling and chimed in unison “good morning Teacher”. I did explain how this was going to work but thanks to the ‘idea ad’ on Television, they now had a better idea.

And even before I started with my introductory note, they started asking questions just as in our regular classes. The comfort level was amazing and they sure were incredibly enthusiastic. When I asked how she liked the Virtual Classroom, Soni, one of the students, responded that she felt lucky because she never could even dream of these things being provided in a government school. She says she now looks forward to coming to school more than ever.

We always believed that this is something that would change the face of Indian public school system. And now that we see in action, we are convinced that the “change” is not too far away. Our target is to deploy EFF’s Virtual Classroom in 1000 schools in the next 5 years.

Here is a photo of the class in progress:

(more pics and videos on the way :))

(Click on the image for a better view)

What do these school text books in India teach?

In my class yesterday, I asked my students if they knew where I was from. They didn’t. So I told them I was from Nagaland. Did they know where it was? This time I heard a “yes.” Without any suspicion or doubt about their knowledge of where my homeland was, I enthusiastically asked “where.” Two girls stood up and shyly somewhat unsure, said that Nagaland is in Africa!

I was amused and shocked at the same time. It was one of those feelings that you can’t quite give a name. With my very tiny little eyes and typical Asian features, I couldn’t possibly be mistaken to be an African or Nagaland to be in Africa.

With a wide smile stuck on my face I told them that I was one of them-- that Nagaland is one of the states in India. Desperate to teach the girls at least some of the basics about their country, I even drew a map of India on the blackboard. It wasn’t anywhere close to being called an Indian map, but thanks to the distinct shape on the right hand side of the map, I was able to show them the part that is called the North-east India. I then gave them the list of states that come under it– most of the names were completely new to them. For the rest of the class, instead of English I ended up teaching them Geography.

So yes, it ended well enough. The girls learned a little lesson, and I learned a big one. I’m left wondering about the kind of education we are giving these children. What is the worth of this free education anyway? We don’t care if the students know anything about the country they live in, the land that’s their home. Instead, year after year, we keep fighting about portions of “communal flavors” in our text books, and other irrelevant stuff.

Someday, hopefully, we’ll start to worry about what our children should learn, instead of being obsessed about what they should not learn.

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan...

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) reaches out to the children of commercial sex workers in a corner of the city in Kolkata as a part of their “Education for All” program.

The social stigma and the fear of ostracism kept mothers from enrolling their children - till the SSA intervened with regular counselling, interaction and awareness drives.

“Children are never made to feel that their mothers are from this disreputable place where I live. Ten years ago, school not have even looked at us, let alone admitted our children to study. So much has changed over the last few years,” said Banita, a sex worker, whose daughter Sona studies at the Swamiji Vidyapeeth Primary School.

Read the complete story here.

SSC to CBSE syllabus in A.P Government School

I had a meeting with the Red Cross officials this morning and as I waited for them to turn up, I noticed a group of unfamiliar students dressed in their own attire seated in a corner of the corridor. I was told that these were newly admitted students, all in grade VI, part of the recently announced plan of the Govt. of A.P. They are the ones who will be using the CBSE syllabus and will be taught in English medium.

The department on Tuesday issued an order introducing English as the medium of instruction with CBSE syllabus from class VI in 6,500 select schools, covering over 250,000 students.

The move is part of the World Bank-aided Strengthening and Universalisation of Quality and Access to Secondary Schools (SUCCESS) project.

Under the order, students of classes VI and VII of upper primary schools which are within two kilometre radius of high schools where English would be introduced as medium of teaching would be shifted to the nearby high schools along with teachers and other administrative staff.

While Red Cross Girls’ High School is an English medium school with their own class VI students why the Government ordered the school to have a bunch of girls from here and there, beats me! At the same time, the teachers are already hands full--the amount of attention the students will receive also worries me.

The students are from Telugu and Urdu medium schools, who am told do not even understand a word of English! Among other things, they do not have a classroom for these students and unless the Government fulfills their promise of providing ‘specially trained’ teachers for them, these students will be left even without teachers.

While there are concerns voiced out by academicians, teachers, parents and concerned citizens, this is a first hand experience of the fiasco that has been doing the rounds ever since the Government announced the plan.

CLF

Center For Learning is an alternative school that believes in giving an all round development to a child. Started by a group of educationist, it has been extremely successful over the years. They have around 30 students with half of them as fee-paying and the rest as sponsored students. Their work looks very interesting and I would like to meet them one of these days. They also bring out a journal called Edu-Care where they discuss issues on education. In their own words:

A Forum for education concerns Quarterly Magazine in English. Edu-care takes up a specific theme in each issue related to education such as "play", "competition" and "culture" and analyses them to great depths. The articles are from CFL members as well as from readers. Discussion threads on topics from previous issues are also published.

Check out their website for details.

Planning to plan

According to this news report, the Human Resource Minister Arjun Singh plans to make a law to provide 'Free and Compulsory' education to children aged between 6-14 years. In India, where illiteracy is rampant, poor aplenty, the policy, if actually planned and implemented, will be like manna from heaven! Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh said today that one of the most critical aspects of social development is education.

He said, "Even the most impressive and robust economic progress is rendered meaningless if social development lags behind"

Singh said he plans to make a law to provide free and compulsory education to the age group of 6 to 14 years.