Site Visit Details

This project was visited by Jayashree & Ashok (Asha Seattle volunteers), along with Mr & Mrs  Janardhan and Mr H.G.Suryanarayana on the 30th December 1999.  Mr Janardhan and Mr Suryanarayana have both been extremely involved in this project on Asha's behalf and have been monitoring and carrying on discussions with Rashtrothana Parishat as volunteers on behalf of Asha Seattle. They have helped maintain regular contact with Seva Bharathi and also really added a lot of local perspective to this project. They are both retired from their professional teaching careers and are helping voluntarily towards this.

We first visited the Seva Bharathi school. We then had two rounds of discussions on different days with Mr Shrikanth Betageri who is the main driving force behind the Seva Bharathi project. Our goal was to understand not only the functioning of the school but also get some idea of their overall plans for Ullalu village and how the school facilitated this.

Background of Ullalu Village

Seva Bharathi is situated in the Ullal Upanagara village approximately 15 kms from Bangalore (around 4 kms from the Bangalore University campus). This village is a small settlement of approximately 1200 huts. The residents of this village were previously living in a slum next to the football stadium in Bangalore. These slums were cleared up by the government and their residents were asked to occupy land in what is now Ullalu village. As is common in such situations in India, the villagers currently do not own the land they occupy. They are hopeful of getting a certificate for occupation in a few more years. The government seems to have no problems with their occupying this land.

Rashtrotthana Parishat And Their Involvement

Rashtrotthana Parishat is an NGO based in Bangalore which is mainly involved with setting up and running the school Seva Bharathi at Ullalu village. They have been involved with this village for the past several years. They initially got involved with the village by planting several trees in the village. What was once an open wasteland now has several plantations of coconut and other trees. Their  goal is in overall village development with emphasis on education and health facilities and socio cultural activites.  Rashtrotthana Parishat is an RSS based organization. They however do not discriminate on a religious basis. Their school and facilities are open to any family or child in the village irrespective of their religious background. This group has a very good rapport with the villagers as well as the village Panchayat. The seven Panchayat members visit the school on a fairly regular basis and Rashtrotthana Parishat has kept them involved in some of the activities being conducted in the school premises. They have also established a good relationship with the M.L.A for the village. 

Rashtrotthana Parishat has also been involved in a yearly survey of the village to find out the number of  children who are not being educated. They then approach the families of these children and try to persuade them to attend the school.

We met with Shri Srikanth Betageri who seems to be the driving force. He was accompanied by  Shri Bhattacharya who is a consultant for Seva Bharathi, Shri Gersoppa, a volunteer and Shri Suryanarayana Rao who is the accountant. We were really impressed with Mr Betageri. He seems to be really motivated and it was clear that he was the most involved with Seva Bharathi. He seems very dedicated and also very open to our discussions. We asked several questions and he answered very patiently. The other members seem to be merely accompanying him. We were not too sure of their role or how involved they were with Seva Bharathi. Some of them seemed to be uncomfortable with our questions but since Shri Betageri did not seem to mind and in fact seemed to be enjoying the discussions with us we continued.  He kept remarking that he was very happy that we are not just being donors and requested us to continue to give them feedback and stay involved in the Ullalu school.

Details of the school gathered on the 30th Dec 1999.

Description of the school visit

We all met at Shri H.G.Suryanarayana's house and took a van to Seva Bharathi. It was a pleasant journey and really worth taking to get a breath of  fresh air. The road to Ullalu village is lovely - with several fields and coconut groves. A welcome change from the crowded streets of Bangalore. We took some goodies with us as gifts for all the children and teachers. We took pencils and chocolates for the children and pens for the teachers. The school is situated in a corner of the village. The school was in progress when we reached and we could hear the voices of the children reciting their lessons. We were initially very hesitant to disturb the classes but the children being curious were all looking out of their class rooms anyway. They could see us hovering in the corridors and immediately spotted us - outsiders! The teachers we met assured us that they feel very happy to have visitors who show interest in them. So we started visiting the classes.

We started with the nursery classes "Aruna" (LKG) and "Udaya" (UKG). The children sat on mats and mostly learnt rhymes, alphabets. The teaching style was repetitive. The children repeated and memorized what the teacher said. The mats and school furniture was bought with Asha's funding. Each child told us his or her name. Some whispered, some giggled and some very eagerly told us more than just their names. We found most of the children surprisingly talkative. They were really thrilled with their pencil gift. My mother was handing out their toffees and it was immediately gobbled up. We talked a little to the teachers Jayalakshmi and Ramamani. They seemed enthusiastic and are enjoying their jobs. Both of them are local and intended sticking with the school.  Jayalakshmi's son Abhishek also studies in the same class. We noticed that he was the class leader and seemed to be fairly authoratative for his age.

We visited every class from the 1st to the 7th standards and talked to the children. Every child told us his/her name and talked about their background. We noticed, that the children seemed to be a mix of different religions. Most of the children had no trouble introducing themselves. The children in the higher classes also told us about their parents and their jobs. Most of them had working parents (both working) who worked as coolies (daily wages in construction sites in the city). They told us that a truck picks them up and takes them for work. The children come to school when their parents are working. Some fathers worked as painters and weavers. None of them seem to own any farming land since we did not hear them mention this. One little boy decide to venture a bit and quickly put his hand out to shake hands with us. Pretty soon all the children decided that shaking hands was a good thing to do and we got our hands exercised that day. The children seemed to be energetic and fairly confident talking to us total strangers. 

We did get a chance to talk to each of the teachers. Some of them seem enthusiastic but were aware of only traditional teaching methods.  Our impression after talking to them is that they are doing their job but really lacked in good quality teaching techniques and did not think about how effective their techniques really were. They used fairly standard repetitive teaching techniques. The higher classes especially seemed to be too monotonous and theoritical and we found that the difference in knowledge between the different classes after 5th seemed to drop.We were not really convinced that the teachers were good educators. They however seemed to like coming to the school. Most had been with the school for less than a year. Most of them also seemed to be from Ullalu village. We brought the quality issues up with Mr Betageri. We listened to the problems he has been having over the past year and the steps they have been taking to fix them. He mentioned that the biggest problem they have had has been with retaining teachers. If they hired more qualified/better teachers they invariably left for better paying jobs in the city. So the solution is to hire people from the same village who will stick on in their own village and take interest in their school. The teachers in the village however were not really trained and did a barely adequate job. He however still thinks it is a much better investment for the school to take even semi qualified teachers from Ullalu village and get them trained to be better teachers. 

Overall our impressions were that the school is providing standard curriculum education to children. The children certainly have learnt how to read and write and the school addresses basic literacy which is a right for every child. The children seem to enjoy coming to school. The school functions like most other schools in India. It prepares a child for higher education. The school however draws attention to conventional education as it is practised in India. The system is such that nobody questions how appropriate education is. Education is seen as a basis to getting jobs but not enough importance is given to quality and how useful it really is. We think that this problem persists not just at Seva Bharathi but in India on the whole. Several schools catering to the upper income families still have the same problem. Maybe it is time to start thinking about what education really is - what is appropriate education, what curriculum makes sense. We think that Asha should start thinking about these issues more and expand its charter to address some of these.

At this point we also talked about what better incentives could be provided to retain teachers better. Mr H.G.Suryanarayana suggested that housing is a really big incentive for low income families. Maybe Seva Bharathi could consider providing housing to the teachers. This typically roots them better. Another incentive could perhaps be in kind - with grains etc. We promised to mull over these problems and perhaps suggest some alternatives to Seva Bharathi. Ashok and I decided to discuss this further with other Asha Seattle volunteers and perhaps also see how our other projects are solving this problem. Overall we feel that hiring local teachers is the way to go. It also creates a better environment in the village by providing both job opportunities and also in getting the school accepted by the village itself. Mr Betageri mentioned that they are thinking of getting some teachers from Bangalore to talk to the Seva Bharathi teachers about different teaching techniques. This should also provide some inspiration to the teachers. He mentioned that a big motivator is to have people visit Seva Bharathi regularly. He mentioned that it will be wonderful if Asha volunteers can visit Seva Bharathi on a regular basis. He was also happy to discuss some ideas with us and urged us to continue to participate in discussions with him.

The school infrastructure itself is fairly decent. Some of the stairs do not have a railing and it is dangerous for the children. Seva Bharathi intends fixing this in the near future. They have been taking help from both Asha Seattle as well as the Lions's club in Bangalore to get some of their infrastructure  in place. There is also no toilet facility for the children. This is a real problem. Seva Bharathi intends constructing a toilet for the kids this year. So far there was no water connection for the village but a water tank has been built and the village will be getting running water within a couple of months. Seva Bharathi will probably request us for funds to construct the toilets.They do have drinking water available for the children. There are waste paper baskets and they encourage the children to use them. The children also have to clean the school premises just before assembly. This encourages them to keep the school surroundings clean.

Seva Bharathi has managed to get a doctor to visit the school every Sat. The children get free medical advise. Their are also encouraged to maintain atleast some personal hygience and this is checked every Saturday. They have been receiving free deworming treatment (most of the children have worms thanks to the water and mud in that area) and are also being given iron tablets upon doctor's advise. Seva Bharathi intends giving every child carrots and sprouts once a week starting next year. 

Seva Bharathi is fairly involved with the village itself. Their goal is to make the school a center for different village activities. They have also organized eye camps and pediatric camps in the village. They want to hold these activities in the school to encourage the villagers to participate better in the running of the school. Apart from health facilities they also want to use the school premises to hold different cultural activities in the village. This should also draw more people towards the school. We suggested that they hold regular parent teacher meetings atleast once in 2 months. They were very happy with this suggestion and want to follow up on this next year.

Seva Bharathi has been helping conducting census in the village. They are also involved in finding out how many children dont go to school. Last year's survey found 230 children who were not going to school. Seva Bharathi will be visiting their houses in May to try and persuade them to join the school. The problem of space to accomodate all the children came up. We suggested that they try a shift system with two different shifts for the school. But Mr Betageri mentioned that the parents prefer to send their children to school when they are working. He did not think that the shift system would work since the children would not be able to go back home when their parents are away.  In spite of the space constraints they seem to be confident of getting a fair number of children into school. They expect around 300 children next year.

We discussed several other ideas/issues/problems and some of their ideas. Here is a summary of these.

1. Dr Lalitha Rao is a Bangalore based doctor whom, they have contacted. She is willing to visit the village once a week to treat both the children and adults. They plan to start this next year.
2. We suggested awareness camps, adult classes to increase awareness about several available government schemes for village development which the villagers could avail of (such as 75% funding for toilet construction etc). Also generating enough interest among the villagers to fix some of the problems in their village such as lack of water, cleaniness, better facilities. Holding these awareness camps every two months staring this June.
3. Parent teacher meetings encouraging parents to take pride in their school and education.
4. Keeping the teachers enthused and providing training to improve the quality of education during vacation time (Shikshan Vikas Parishat).
5. A weekly mid day meal as an incentive for the children to get them into school and also make them healthier.
6. Teaching by story telling rather than just repetitive lessons. They have built a library and have several educational story books which the children can avail of.
7. Investigate newer teaching techniques. We really need to do some research into good teacher training methods.