Site Visit date : April 6, 1999.
Prepared by: Sreenivasa Sista

Note: First read this site visit report given by Mr. Ram Mohan, ASHA - Washington DC chapter volunteer. I will add only the
additional points.
 

Background information

Jyothi Nilayam is a school in Vemulanarva village, Keshampet mandal, Mahboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh. Currently Jyothi Nilayam provides primary education to children (specifically - it has only kindergarten). This school is run by a Danish/German, Dr. Koch, settled in Vemulanarva. The school building is rented for Rs.500 per month. It has a classroom, an office and a kitchen.

Jyothi Nilayam's (Dr. Koch's) aim is to provide education to the weaker (financially) sections of the village. The syallabus prepared by Dr. Koch and his team. There are currently two teachers having Masters degree in child development (as per Dr. Koch).

There are 16 students in the kindergarten (11 boys, 5 girls). The children are chosen based on

1. Income of the entire house (parents + others).

2. Health situation of the children

3. Number of children in the family

The villagers themselves participate in the selection of children for Jyothi Nilayam.

The children are provided with the food, milk. They are provided the medication free of cost. This is done in coordination with a doctor who has a clinic in Shadnagar.

In Jyothi Nilayam,

1. Teachers are supposed to study any abnormalities in the behavior of the children on a daily basis. A record of the child's behavior is maintained daily. These records are reviewed at regular intervals.
2. The education is a non-formal education. The kindergarten children are taught using the educational toys.
3. One record is maintained for one child admitted in Jyothi Nilayam. These records contain the medical history of the child, the progress shown by the children.
4. The parents are also educated twice a week i.e. adult literacy program.

Here is some information from my chat with Dr. Koch

1. According to Dr. Koch, Jyothi Nilayam, education is not just a teacher with a stick in hand trying to force the information into the heads of the students. He wants a handful of students under a teacher motivated to go to school.
2. They are going to expand to 32 children by adding another classroom. This new classroom will be a renovated "animal health clinic in a bad shape".
3. The landlord (termed as generous crook by Dr. Koch) has donated an acre of land for building the school.
4. Special care is taken in the selection of the toys and the maintenance of the toys. The toys are sterilized every two weeks. The educational toys are currently imported from Europe (most of them have been donated by the toy manufacturing units). Some the reasons for not buying the toys in the local market are (a) toys are of poor quality (b) they have poor finish with sharp edges, etc.
5. We have raised a question "what happens to a child after he goes out of this 'privileged status' if the external funding stops". His answer is "I'll admit the students if and only if I have enough funding to see that they graduate from Jyothi Nilayam "

Some observations during my trip

1. The school is maintained in a clean state. When I visited the site, the school was closed due to vacations. All the material was packed inside the box to avoid dust. All the rooms (+ restrooms) were very clean (except for the daily dust accumulation). Even during the holidays, food is provided to the students who do not confirm to the physical standards set by the school.
2. When we walked around to see the village, the children came running to Dr. Koch. Some of them were with him during the entire tour of the village. The people have enormous confidence that their children will be safe with the staff of Jyothi Nilayam.
3. On our visit I could see a person who came running to Dr. Koch with his injured child (another student at Jyothi Nilayam) asking Dr. Koch for his assistance about an injury to the child's leg. There was another instance when a woman was telling the deteriorating situation of the child's wounds (due to burns). In both situations, the bandage should have been replaced. These people go to a doctor who has his clinic in a town about 5-6km from the village. The travel expense is about Rs.10 roundtrip. This travel expense may be stopping the parents from going to the doctor for the second time. "Jyothi Nilayam does not pay for the travel expenses". Also, these injuries occurred because of parents leaving the children alone.
4. The village was divided into three sections. (a) The privileged class having solid houses and also lots of agricultural land (b) Backward Caste section - where the BC community lives - better off than the next class (c) SC section - mostly consisting of the "pakka" houses and a few thatched huts. The sanitary facilities in the section C are poor. You can see the open drains, trash thrown everywhere.

Comments

1. Jyothi Nilayam at the first look may appear to be a school, which creates a privileged section within a village. How different is this from "funding a govt. school in a village"? There we are creating a privileged class of govt. school students.
2. During my visit to the keshampet mandal, I had another proposal from a govt. school. There were 100 students in the first class managed by a teacher. I think Jyothi Nilayam has a point "create interest in the children, one teacher for 10-15 children". This may appear to be a large expense, but it is the beginning and a change is required in the quality of education provided to the children. We have to motivate the children and should not force them to go to the school. Jyothi Nilayam does that.
3. Take another aspect of the govt. school I talked earlier. There was a 50% drop out because of 1:100 ratio. Parents were not satisfied by the progress in the children. Jyothi Nilayam has shown in their 6 months existence that the children in their school learn more than the kids going to the govt. school. (This may be one of the reason for the kids in the cities to go to the private schools).

Images

Ramesh (left), Dr. Koch (right ) in the class room (LEFT PHOTOGRAPH)
A clean class room with the teacher's table (RIGHT PHOTOGRAPH)

A neat kitchen. The food was great (I had a chance to taste a little). You can see the refridgerator to store milk and other items. Unfortunately, refridgerator was burnt out due to very high voltages (~600V).  The place was clean, the food vessels were sparkling clean, food was covered.
 

The entrance to the school (left photo).   The kids in the village (the kid on our left side is the kid going to Jyothi Nilayam). This kid was in the school for his lunch (he was under weight). Dr. Koch was planning to take him to a hospital to get his leg (affected by polio) stretched.  This is done after he gains some weight.
 

This shelf has the toys for the kids to play and also some other items like color crayons, clay, etc.
 
  Date Prepared: May 11, 1999.