Site Visit to Akshardeep schools in Pimpri Chinchwad on Tuesday, 7 August 2007.
Project: NFE classes run by Swadhar/Akshardeep, sponsored by Asha Zurich
Report by K. Guruswamy (guruswamy_k(AT)hotmail(DOT)com, Asha Pune)
Also on the site visit: Ankit Shah (Asha Pune volunteer), Mrs. Bapat (Akshardeep coordinator) and Mr. Bagav (Akshardeep Supervisor for PCMC schools)
Introduction: Asha-Zurich is
sponsoring a project with Akshardeep in PCMC (Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal
Corporation) to run 10 non-formal education schools. Details of the
proposal can be found on http://www.ashanet.org/pune/project_index.html).
The objectives of the programme according to the (now old) MoU are:
·
To identify
suitable locations for 10 non-formal schools (based on local requirements and
issues) in the urban slum areas of PCMC.
·
To initiate
classes for primary school education in the selected locations.
·
To hire suitable
teachers and a supervisor for the classes. To arrange for training of teachers.
·
To educate the
children in reading, writing and arithmetic among other subjects. To provide
the children with suitable teaching aids, books and stationery. To arrange a
minimum of two class visits/ camps during the year.
·
To maintain
detailed records of the academic progress of every student.
Detailed report:
This visit was scheduled on a Tuesday and was supposed to be an “unannounced” visit, viz. the teachers were not supposed to know that we were visiting – however, Mrs. Bapat had informed the supervisor, Mr. Bagav, and it appeared that he had informed the teachers since they appeared to be expecting us. I have been visiting the PCMC schools for the last three years or so, and know most of the teachers in these schools. Akshardeep appears to be doing a good job in retaining competent and motivated teachers and most of the teachers that I met this time were familiar faces. This year Akshardeep has recruited four new teachers (as a replacement for two of their regular teachers are on maternity leave and for one [Mrs. Mane who used to teach in the Morwadi school] who has been asked to leave by Akshardeep). There are now 16 schools in 14 locations and Akshardeep has put together a map to give a rough idea of how to get to these schools. Unlike in the Pune area, Akshardeep’s schools in PCMC are spread over a large geographical area.
There are a couple of changes in the Akshardeep schools that I noticed and that I would like to highlight these at the beginning of this report:
a. Greater emphasis on standardization of curriculum and teaching methods: The teachers are now no longer required to decide what to teach, how to teach, etc. on a given day. The planning of daily curriculum, teaching aids and teaching methods have been standardized across all the Akshardeep schools to allow the teacher to focus on delivering that material to the students. Akshardeep has been helped in this by interactions with Doorstep schools, by the volunteer efforts of Mrs. Swati Naik (a retired educator who now lives in PCMC and volunteers her time) and by training programs.
b. Physical exercise. The children do some basic exercises and sing along. See picture.
c. New teaching methods: I was especially impressed by a little girl in the school in Dighi who was singing a song about how to write numbers – this was very nice!
d. The younger siblings of the children at the schools are now segregated into a separate group and rather than allowing them to simply do their own thing (and often disturb the children in the class), Akshardeep is now trying to give them specific activities to keep them occupied. This increases the discipline in the schools and the older children have a better learning experience.
e. Mr. Bagav appears to have made a big (positive) difference in terms of his ability to monitor schools, and take care of the day-to-day running of the schools – maintenance on the sheds, ensuring teacher attendance and performance, liaising with local municipality to make sure Akshardeep schools receive government funding, mid-day meals etc. He has recently appeared for interviews at “regular” schools and might leave Akshardeep, but there seems to have been some effort by Akshardeep and Mr. Bagav in grooming one of the teachers to take over if he does decide to leave.
We first went to the Gandhinagar school. There were two classes being run in the same room (the community center) at the same time. Apparently, a class that was usually run in another room in the same area was required by the community for some other activities on that day (someone in the locality had passed away and there were some rituals associated with that in the other school room) and so both classes had to be run from the same room. Here, I noticed that the younger kids were sitting separately in a corner of the room and had their own activities – like tearing up pieces of paper, scribbling, etc. This segregation did not appear to be complete. There were still a few younger siblings who were sitting with their older brothers/sisters. We also saw the children perform some exercises as part of their lesson (they were singing and doing some exercises). I spoke briefly to the teacher, Vidya Shirole: she showed me her record books and told me that she had has 11 children “mainstreamed” in the regular municipal school the previous year. She was following up on these children, viz. visiting their homes and their schools to make sure that the children were attending regularly and not dropping out. She had found that all the children from her school were doing well in their examinations in the municipal school – they had all passed and one of her students had come first. The pride with which she was telling us this was clearly evident. Here was clearly someone who took pride in her job and was very excited at the success of her students.
We then discussed the Anandnagar school (but did not visit since these schools are from 1-4pm). I had last visited this school during the rains last year and, at that time, the roof of this school was leaking, the floors were wet and the children could not sit and learn. Mrs. Bapat told me that this school room was no longer being used since the community wanted Akshardeep to pay the entire cost to fix the roof. Instead, Akshardeep now holds their classes in another school in the same area since they were already paying the maintenance costs for that school room. Mrs. Bapat mentioned something interesting to me: she said that Akshardeep typically never fixes up the school rooms that they have perfectly. She says that whenever they have done a good job on maintenance, the local community/ owner of the shed asks them to move out since that shed now has good rental value. This is unusual logic, but is probably valid.
We then went to the Phulenagar school – this school is held in a temple from 10am-1pm. It was about 11 when we got there – but, strangely there was no teacher. The teacher came back in some time and said that she had gone to get the children from their homes. As we waited there, children walked in and out of this class. A few kids came back from the municipal school, waited by the door and were talking to one of the children in the class. Shortly, he took off his Akshardeep shirt and left to join them in their game. In general, the teacher appeared to be incompetent and incapable of handling this class. This was the same teacher whom I had seen a year ago (she had been newly appointed then). Clearly, it did not appear that the experience had not helped her develop classroom skills. I was very disappointed with this class, and Mrs. Bapat and Mr. Bagav seemed quite embarrassed by this. They later told me that they felt that they had already given her enough time to prove herself and that they would now plan to replace her and move her into preparation of teaching aids or as an assistant to a teacher in another class.
We then went to the Balaji nagar school. It started raining around the time we got to this school. This school is in a large room and it was extremely dark in the room. Mr. Bagav told me that there was initially no lighting in this room and that they had put in a couple of bulbs. These bulbs were clearly inadequate and the students were in darkness. Mr. Bagav told me that the local community would not let them put in tubelights since they felt that their electricity bills would go up (not sure of this logic since tube lights are typically 40W, similar to these bulbs). I told them that if they needed to pay the electicity bills for this room and put in more tubelights, Asha would consider that a legitimate expense. Mrs. Bapat told me that Swadhar should be able to foot this themselves – we should follow up on this and check on this during the next visit. Also, the person who owned that shed was allowing a family to stay in a part of the room. When we got to this class, the contractor who delivers mid day meals had just come and the children were eating hot khichadi.
We finally went to two new classes in Dighi and at Nasik Phata. The class in Dighi is in an open area and the community has pitched tents to live there. This community comprises of fortune tellers – these folks read palms, and tell the future for a living. Mr. Bagav told me that this area was on his way from PCMC to Pune, and he noticed children playing in this area during school time one day. When he inquired, he was told that this area had no facilities and that there were no schools nearby for these children. Therefore, he got Akshardeep to set up a school here too. The school was in a tin shed, and the top was covered with a plastic sheet. The kids here (there were mainly girls when we visited since, I was told, there was some festival that day and all the boys had gone to the temple). Two of the children put on a little impromptu skit for us (see movie). This school appeared very well organized, the children appeared enthusiastic and happy and the teachers appeared to be quite good. This is where I saw the little girl singing a song about how to write numbers.
We
then went to the school at Nasik Phata.
This was also in a community of tents on the side of the road. These people were Lamani tribals from
Finally we stopped at the Shantinagar class. This was an afternoon class and had just started. Two classes were being held here at the same time since one of the teachers was new (replacing a teacher who was on maternity leave). The children were drawing rangoli (see another picture) when we visited and the younger siblings were tearing up pieces of paper. I’ve visited this class in the past and this is one of the more competently managed classes.
Summary:
Overall, this project appears to be heading in the right direction. I made a point in my last report that there needs to be more community outreach. The benefits of these classes should, in my opinion, be communicated more effectively to the parents of the children and others in the community so that there is more support. Mrs. Bapat tells me that she is planning a proposal for a social worker to bolster this effort – she is hoping for someone who is as efficient as Mr. Bagav, and in addition has English language and networking skills. This might be worthwhile considering since it could make a big difference to this project in the long term (assuming Akshardeep could retain such a person after he/she gets trained and gets a good hold on this job). IT will be interesting to see how the role of such a person is envisioned in the proposal.
