Dear Anurag and friends
                         Thank you for showing concern
towards efforts which LSS is doing with tribal
communities in Raigad district.The answers to your
quries as follows.

1. Are most children from the 2 villages attending the
alternative school? Has there been any change in the
trend of the dropout rate from the govt school?

Ans.     In the village sonde wadi yes as far as
danwadi is concern some students do go to the govt.
school but they do attain alternative school in the
evening.

2. Has LSS tried to communicate with the state
education dept. regarding the current poor state of
affairs of the school?  
 At local level Yes such as in the villages where
teacher do not attain the school for many days or come
when ever they want. In such cases we do take up
matters with the education dept.      

3. What are the benefits of the alternative school as
opposed to the potential benefits of the govt. school?
Is it your long term plan to bring the students from
the alternative school back to the mainstream through
the Open School Examination? 
     Alternative school is not an opposition to the
mainstream school .The ideology behind the alternative
school is basically to improve the quality of 
learning, education. One should able to relate it to
life . That is why the methodolgy is important ,and
also it should help to solve the issue of livliwood.
The problem with govt. schools is the quality is
detereioting every day.The main reason behind this is
it has become fix assets for the teachers for earning
salary.There are not worried about the quality at all
.The mentality is such that they just want there
salary every month. We have many examples that the
students In 5th std. do not know how to write or read
. The drop out rate is very high esecially in the
tribal areas.  
     Our effort is basically to build the foundation
strong .If primary education is of good quality surely
it will be easier for them to apper for higher
examination through national open school.

4. Please provide some more details regarding the
teaching methodology of the school. When you say
different, what do you mean?
    The methodology is different for different
subject. The alternative school do not have standard
such as standard 1 ,2 ,3 etc. we have different
groups(gat) according to there age. For example mango
group
 The names of the group are decided by the childrens.
For every group teacher makes the sylabuss according
to subjects. Once the child complete the the sylabbus
he or she join the other group. The weekly evaluation
method for evey child has been formulated by the
teachers . Evey child get individual attention.
 We do not have exams .Since every child get
individual attention their progress has been watched
and documented by the teachers. The teachers maintain
weeekly grade sheet.

5. Are the children more comfortable learning in
marathi or katkari? What medium(s) of instruction are
you using currently?
         The mother tounge is katkari or thakri so
even marathi some times become difficult for them to
understand. Since the teachers are from there
community it is easier for them to translate certain
things in there language. Right now the medium of
instruction is marathi.

6. Regarding starting more schools, our consensus was
that maybe we should focus on stabilizing the current
schools, before thinking of expanding. What are your
thoughts regarding this? 

           I too agree with your consensus but lets
keep the issue open if we get good committed teacher
and village we may think of starting one more school.

7. What type of teacher training do you have in mind?
Who will be conducting the training, where? 

  We have some friends in banglore they have helped us
before strating these schools.They themself are
running the alternative schools. Once they have come
and conducted workshop for teachers . We are planning
to conduct one more in our area they are ready to
come. Basically they help teachers in making different
tools for teaching, new methodolgy etc.

8. Could you please provide us with the background of
the teachers? Are they responsible only for teaching,
or do they also participate in the social activisim
efforts of LSS?
 Teachers are involved only in teaching we have other 
activist to handle  social issues.

9. Can you provide more details as to why two schools
were closed last year?
    basically because of the local issues If there is
unity in the village it is easier to work.If there is
groupism then its difficult to work. The villages now
we are running the schools are united so have good
result from there.          
     
10. Can you provide some more details about the land
cultivation effort mentioned? Who will be involved,
what will be done and how will the results be helpful
to the children? 
   The land cultivation is basically for the elder
children . One of our activist have a land where water
is avilable all the time. Last year also we have got
students involved in small agriculture activity and we
got good result. This year we thought to start it more
seriosely and professionly so that they can learn it
as a source of livliwood and also it can be income
genration activity for the school
 The idea is to make a flowers and vegitable farm.  
Also could you please give us a breakdown of the costs
involved?.
           Estimated agriculture cost 15,000.00

              Land upgradation   5000.00
              Seeds ,pestisides  5000.00
              Hon. for a farmer  4000.00
                For Four month
              Travelling cost    1000.00 
               of students   _____________
                                !5,000.00 

11. Is the health care provided reactive (as the need
arises) or proactive (preventative and regular)? Is
there a possibility of having a regular general health
checkup of the children?
   We want to make it proactive rather than just
reactive. We also work on helth issues we do get
reular check up not every month but once in two
month.Basically we called PHC doctor . But since the
location of the PHC is quite far away fron the
villages and it is closed in the night.It is beter to
have some medicine in the village. 

12. What kind of library do you have?  How many books
(and what language) do you carry?
 We have around 200 books for childrens of marathi
language. And we keep it in both the schools .All
types of books such as story,language,history,maths
etc. basically published by different alternative
schools.

13. What is the involvement of the parents in the
running of the schools?  Are they allowed to have a
say in the matter of how their children are being
taught?
    Parents are involved in the school from the
begaining without their involment it was impossible to
run these schools.they do have say in all school
matters.  
   
14. What are your long term plans/vision?  How do you
plan to make education sustainable for the Katkaris?
How do you think socio-economic change would come
about for them?
                Continuation and upgradation of the
the present alternative school will help the tribal
children in every aspect of life .Not only just
reading and writing but use this knoweldge ,education
to over come socio-economic herdels and also help
their community brothers and sisters. This is the
vision we all have.
      The suggestions made by the asha boston would be
surely dissused with the LSS team.

   Mahendra singh
 for LSS