ISDGEI Site Visit Report

by Susheel Jadhav (Asha-MSU), 28th Feb 2001

Overview

I had gone to the Kolhapur site on 28th of February, 2001. I did not inform in advance to Dr. Sreedhar about my visit purposly so as to avoid seeing a 'made' situation.

The name of the school is Tejas Mukta Vidyalaya and it is loacated in the Rajendranagar slum area of Kolhapur.It seems that it is well known in that area since the people(and the Rikshawala who took us there) knew about the school that we were going to visit. This school is in it's 11th year of functioning.

  1. The school is run in two different buildings.
  2. Classes 1 to 4 in one building and 4 to 7 in the other.
  3. The creche unit is run in a separate room.( It is very small and the 60 kids are have to be almost cramped in a space of about 150 square feet).
  4. There is a separate two room block for the office.There is one accountant and 1 steno in the office.
  5. 1 teacher per class from 1st to 7th.
  6. 4 teachers and 1 assistant for the creche unit.
  7. Teachers for the creche unit are paid Rs.1400 per month.
  8. Out of the 8 teachers for class 1 to 7, 4 are recognized and paid 7500 Rs. per month by the state government. Remaining 4 are unrecognized and are paid Rs. 2500 per month.
  9. Adult literacy classes are also conducted.
  10. Dr. Sreedhar received some awards which includes a state government award 'Dalita Mitra',in recognition of his efforts to educate the backward classes.

About the School

I went to each class personally and inspected the progress of the students in reading, arithematic and sciences. I am happy to say that progress of the students in all of these was satisfactory. Students seemed enthusiastic in learning and attendence was satisfactory. Books were provided to the children free of cost. The creche unit had 4 teachers and there were about 60 kids there. There were some playing kits for the children to enable them to indentify various animals and learn through fun. Children are offered meals everyday in order to encourage them to come to school.

Comments

The basic aim of the school is to promote girl education, especially for those backward class parents who engage their kids in child labour and force early marriage on their daughters. According to Dr. Sreedhar, because of the presence of this school the occurrence of child marriage in Rajendranagar slum has come down to zero. The school planned to have classes upto 10th but due to lack of space they are functioning upto 7th only. Also the present buildings are not sufficient to accomodate the children comfortably.So the next goal of the project is to acquire land and construct the school upto class 10. A government land is available nearby and efforts are on to convince the authorities to release the land for the school.( Here some political backing is required to get the things done.) The problem with the creche unit is the same. The present structure is too cramped to accomodate more children.

I am very happy to such inspiring work and i thing that every effort should be put from our side to ensure that the project achieves its desired goals.

About the Funding

CRY funded the project from it's inception to upto 5 years. Dr. Sreedhar has received 37500Rs. from Asha-Berkely and Rs. 38500 from Asha-MSU. For running the creche unit for this year, Dr. Sreedhar has given a quotation of 1,23,920 Rs.