Project Pearl – Site Visit Report

Date: 26^th and 27^th June, 2014 (Thursday and Friday)

Rajaraman K and EzhilKumaran K started from Chennai to Kayathar to look at existing and new schools that could be sponsored by the Asha Chennai Chapter for the academic year – 2014-15. We also visited the existing community libraries and Balwadi(s). We were joined by John Baul, the Asha teacher and coordinator for Project Pearl at Kayathar. John Baul had already spoken to the Head Master / Mistress of various schools in the Kayathar sector and shortlisted three new schools for the visit.

Our first stop was at a Panchayat Union Primary school at the Ayyanar Ootru village.

This school is a new school, currently not sponsored by Asha Chennai chapter.

The school consisted of 211 children (including English medium sections) and six Government teachers and One Head Mistress. English medium of education was taught in standards one through three.

This school is the largest in the Kayathar sector given the number of students enrolled in the school. The other good aspect of the school was the tenure of the Government teachers in this school. We learnt that the couple of teachers were teaching for more than eight years in the same school. We spoke to the head mistress – Mary Gilda. She was newly appointed to the school and she introduced a couple of female teachers who spoke to us about the school. Rajaram enquired about the ease with which the Government teachers were coping with the English medium sections. One teacher in particular had a good command of English and was able to respond back to our queries with relative ease. She was teaching the third Standard English medium section. There was clearly a need for additional teachers at this school and they were also welcoming of Asha’s involvement.

We did not visit the class room or speak to any other teachers in this school.

John Baul had invited a local candidate for the interview (for the teacher position) based on Asha Chennai team’s request. Rajaram interviewed the candidate and noted her strong points and areas of improvement. Overall, we spent about an hour in this school. We left after enquiring about the requirements for the school and the Government teachers highlighted some common items (Mats, Maps, Dictionaries and sports items) that could be very useful if sponsored by Asha Chennai team.

School Children split up:

Standard/ Grade	Tamil Medium		English Medium
	Boys	Girls	Boys	Girls
I	5	5	17	15
II	14	16	17	16
III	7	13	12	13
IV	8	20
V	14	19
Total	48	73	46	44

Our next school was the Panchayat Union middle school at Pannickerkulam in the Kayathar Union.

This is a new school, currently not sponsored by Asha Chennai chapter.

We met the head mistress – Philomina Kumari and enquired about the school and how well they were managing the English medium of education.

We had a brief chat with one of the teacher and got the split up of the children in various grades. We learnt that English medium was taught only in the first grade. Also in all there was one teacher for grades one through three and one teacher for the fourth and fifth grade. In addition, there are three teachers apart from the head mistress for grades six through eight.

Overall, the school strength is 105, with 62 students in the primary grades (one through five) and 43 students in the middle grades (six, seven and eight). Given two teachers for classes 1 through 5 and given they have also introduced English medium, the need in this school for an additional teacher is very high. The school also welcomed Asha’s involvement.

School Children split up:

Standard/ Grade	Tamil Medium		English Medium
	Boys	Girls	Boys	Girls
I - V	30	19	8	5
VI	6	8
VII	6	8
VIII	8	7
Total	50	42	8	5

At this school, there were two teachers who were waiting for the interview. We gathered specific details such as the candidates’ +2 marks, graduate degree and marks etc. Rajaram interviewed both the candidates and shared the feedback to them.

Post lunch, we visited the Panchayat Union middle school at Vaaghai Thaavoor.

This is an existing school, sponsored by Asha Chennai team since last academic year (2013-14). The head mistress – Iyyamal is a long time known person to the Asha Chennai team. She previously worked at one of our other sponsored school at Nagalapuram within the Kayathar union.

We spoke to her about the functioning of the school and Asha team engagement within the school. Asha Chennai has sponsored a teacher – Mohana for this school since the last academic year. She teaches Science and English to the children at this school.

Overall, the school had 51 students and five teachers including the head mistress. Class one through five has two teachers and class six through eight has three teachers.

Standard/ Grade	Boys	Girls
I - V	12	13
VI - VIII	13	13
Total	25	26

We went to the classes sixth and eight and interacted with the children. Rajaram engaged the students in the class with questions about the continents, countries and common English words. He also requested the class three and fourth to multiple three digit numbers to check their understanding of multiplication concepts.

We enquired about the feeder Balwadi and got to know that earlier around twenty children used to come but not due to the absence of a Balwadi teacher, no one comes in.

Post our interactions with the teachers and children, Rajaram spoke to Mohana and John Baul, the Asha sponsored teachers for Project Pearl. We pitched the idea of getting the teachers to come to Chennai once every three months or so for various training sessions and encouraged them to meet once every fortnight or month to share the best practices on teaching and learning.

Also Rajaram corrected the assessment report of John and Mohana and shared his feedback to them.

We finished the discussions and set out to visit the Nagalapuram Community Library at Nagalapuram Panchayat.

We reached the Viswanathan Nagalapuram Community library, named after the late Asha Chennai volunteer at around 5 pm.

EzhilKumaran reviewed the book catalogue register and the book checkout register. The total number of books available is 413. We were happy with the local students checking out books to refer for studies and other aspects. The number of checkouts for the first half of the year was very encouraging.

The library is managed by an Asha sponsored staff – Pechiammal and her efforts to build the library was very good. The number of students flocking the library after school hours was very encouraging and we learnt that the villagers used the community library to read local newspapers almost every day. In short, the community library at Nagalapuram was a huge hit locally.

We again spoke to the children about how the library helped them. We played word puzzle games with the children at the library and were happy with the enthusiastic responses from the children.

We enquired about the new requirements for the library. Some items that were highlighted are Mats, chair, Atlas, Globe and Maps.

We concluded the day after this visit to the community library.

Date: 27-June, 2014

We started the day by visiting the other community library at Suriyaminikkan village. The community library room was rented from the Panchayat however in the past month the floor was broken up for the new flooring to be made. As such the library was in an unusable state. All the books and newspaper were stored in the house of Kuzhandhai Velu, an Asha sponsored staff.

We visited Kuzhandhai Velu’s house and noted the books and newspaper in his house. We checked the book catalogue register. The number of books present is 62.

We left the Suriyaminikkan library to visit the Suriyaminikkan Panchayat Primary school. This school is not sponsored by Asha Chennai chapter.

Overall, the school had 34 children and two teachers, including the head master. The head master requested for an Asha sponsored teacher for this school. We interacted with the children of fourth standard and posted standard multiplication questions. Overall, the school was small compared to other schools due to the fewer number of people living in that Panchayat. While the school asked for Asha’s support, the need for that doesn’t seem to be strong.

One candidate turned up for the interview at the Suriyaminikkan School. Rajaram interviewed the candidate and shared the feedback with her.

We then visited the Nagalapuram Panchayat Middle school at Nagalapuram.

Asha Chennai team has sponsored this school for many years and John Baul is the regular Asha staff teacher at this school. The head master – Tirupathisami is a strong supporter of Asha Chennai chapter and is impressed with the good work done so far.

Overall the school strength is 123 however it is expected to climb up to 135 in number in the next one/two months as more students start to enroll.

Standard/ Grade	Total
I - V	78
VI - VIII	45
Total	123

Classes One had only English medium education imparted and classes two had both English and Tamil medium of education. We enquired about the ease at which the Government teachers taught English and the Head master noted that although most Government teachers struggle to impart English medium education, the Government had come up with a training program for the teachers.

There are seven Government teachers including the Head master (2 male and 5 female). Three teachers were in charge of class one through five and three teachers handled class six through eight.

After the discussion with the Head master, we went to the class to interact with the children. We found the children in here were relatively better off given the good teacher/student ratio and a helpful Asha staff in John Baul. It was good to note that the school was participating in a lot of activities. The children were being taught Chess and computers. The students of the 8^th std were encouraged (and coached) for writing the state government scholarship test which will enable the selected children to get Rs 600 per month from their 9^th std to 12^th std.

The headmaster at the school was extremely appreciative of the work being done by John Baul. He was instrumental is getting Chennai and computer education started at this school. He was playing an active role in the scholarship coaching and almost all the extra activities of the school. He had a much larger role than just the class I education that he is in charge of.

We enquired about the school requirements for the current academic year and made a note of them.

Two candidates were waiting for the teacher post at Nagalapuram School. Rajaram interviewed them and made a note of their performance. One of the candidates was impressive in her ability to answer on a wide range of subjects.

We then walked over to the feeder Balwadi at Nagalapuram. This Balwadi was taken care by Pechiammal, an Asha staff who also takes care of the Nagalapuram library. There were about 25 children at this Balwadi.

During our visit, we could not go to the other community library at E. Velayudhapuram. That library is far away and typically requires a day to commute back and forth the Kayathar region. We however requested the librarian – Siluvaikani to come to Kayathar so that we could meet him. Siluvaikani gracefully agreed and met us at Nagalapuram library post our visit to the Nagalapuram School and Balwadi.

Siluvaikani spoke about the various practices he brought about in his library including opening the library for longer time and providing clean drinking water to the visitors. He urged us to visit E. Velayudhapuram and possibly look at sponsoring schools in that region.

Post lunch, we visited the Vadakku Illanthaikulam primary school in the Kayathar Union.

This school is not currently sponsored by Asha Chennai chapter.

The head mistresses welcomed us and shared the details of the school strength.

Standard	Tamil Medium		English Medium
	Boys	Girls	Boys	Girls
I	4	6	6	12
II	5	7	9	10
III	10	24
IV	11	13
V	9	10
Total	39	60	15	22

Overall, the school had five teachers and there was one teacher assigned to each standard. We did not visit the class room or spoke to the children since the head mistress wanted to check with the Administrative Offer (AO) about the possibility of getting a Asha sponsorship for her school. We informed her about Asha organization and the activities that we support as part of our sponsorship.

The level of interest in getting Asha’s support is luke-warm at this school. The headmistress did not seem very keen to have our involvement. We concluded the visit of the school.

We visited the Nellaiappar temple and sought the divine blessings of Swami Nellaiappar and Sri Kanthimathai Ambal and concluded the site visit for Project Pearl.

The items noted during our interactions with the teachers, staff and other members will be used while drawing he budget for the schools. Also the final list of schools selected for sponsorship will be decided on the number of teachers shortlisted from the interview.