Rotary Distance Education Program

Site visit report 2012 (Venkatesh Chari)

I visited the site which was located in Jawhar district of Thane on Dec 21^st, 2012, during my visit to India. It was a good feeling walking in, clean premises and well kept up class rooms. I met with Mr. Purushottam Agwan and Mr. Mahesh Gupte and had a detailed discussion with them. They very much appreciated the financial help they were expecting to receive from Asha. Since the funds from Asha Toledo were from one of the three funding sources for this entire project, they updated me on the fund status that was going to be received from the other two sources – District 3140 and other neighboring Rotary clubs. The classroom seemed to be well set-up and equipped with what was proposed in the project proposal. Also, I got a chance to speak with a 17 yr old boy who was very excited about this new technology (e-learning) and mentioned that in this way, apart from regular education, they also got learn what a computer is and how it works. The children that were involved in this e-learning facility ranged from little kids to adults who had dropped out from school. In a single classroom, the number of students would range between 30-50 students. Also, I spoke to one of the teachers who was actively involved in RDEP – Mrs. Sangeeta Shete who teaches at the ZP Primary School at Machar,Pune.

Following are some pictures from the site-visit: