Imparting Elementary Education to children: an Evaluation

Report
-Shiv
Prasad Singh i

Need for Elementary education in India is a burning issue presently like

the need of poverty alleviation for the masses and or communal
harmony for the survival of the nation as an entity. It is pathetic to
quote about the dismal state of Universal Elementary Education (UEE)
indicator of India, bracated along with the Sub-Saharan African
Countries and India having a third of ‘Global total out of school
children.’ As expected due to public outcry every new government
makes pious and solemn promises to improve the above situation on
time bound programme basis, allotting some additional fund to show
increased funding as per GDP from time to time, introducing slogans ‘
Serve Shiksha Abhiyan’, appointing mere teacher, introduction of ‘Mid
Day Meals’ scheme etc. They all draw wide print and electronic media
attention which are widely discussed in public as well. But on close
scrutiny of the product ( so called E.E. to children) produced these
government financed efforts, one finds the results is far below the
satisfactory level of expectation.

In such a situation, PVCHR received a fund from Sir Dorabji Tata Trust,
Mumbai to impart elementary education to the children of
disadvantaged groups, who are living in urban slums or villages in
Varanasi district under the project ‘ “Quality Education to Dalits,
Backward and Minority children”.

Under the project PVCHR started to impart elementary education to

children in 15 Pre-Primary Centers, one Full Time Center, support of
teachers and teacher training in Madarasa and initiative educational
campaign for realization of RTE in 50 villages through fellowship
program in April 2009. For this purpose a number of activists were
given special training. In the course of imparting elementary education
under the project, innovative programmes were initiated encouraging
children in their respective localities to join the Centers. Here, my
concern is to evaluate the success of the project in two Pre-Primary
Centers i.e. Bajardiha and Sarang Talab and one Full Time Center i.e.
Baghwanala.

Pre Primary Center (PPC) at Bajardiha

Background of the locality: Bajrdiha area is mostly inhabited by

Muslim weaver community. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim weavers
live in this densely populated and filthy area in abject poverty.
Overflowing sewers with stinky smell are very common in the area.
Outbreak of waterborne diseases and epidemics are frequent
phenomenon during rainy season from which the children suffer most.
There is no government hospital and school in the area. Most of the
weavers in the area earn at average Rs. 1000 to 1500 per month.

It was realized that the biggest problem before the project to succeed
is to motivate the children to attend the Center regularly and reduce
the drop out level to minimum. Majority of the children in the project
are first time school goer. Their parents feel that helping in their
weaving work is more essential for their children than to wasting their
time at the school.

Initiatives taken on the part of the Project: In such a dismal

background PVCHR decided to impart elementary education to the
children of 3 to 6 years of age group in the area under the project
“Quality Education to Dalits, Backward and Minority children” and
following initiatives were taken to make it effective:

(a) Campaigning with local community: Initially, guardians in the

locality showed a little interest into the elementary education of their
children. But PVCHR from very beginning of this project conducted
intensive campaigning to contact with local community and guardians
to make them understand the importance of elementary education to
their children from very early age. And in due course of time people
started to send their children at the Center.

(b) Special and personalized schooling facilities: Project has

realized that to make its effort truly effective on a body of children as it
has been trying to do since October, 2009; there is a need to provide
special and personalized teaching facilities to the students under the
scheme of the project. Most of them are first time in the school, made
to join the education stream rather reluctantly as they hardly been
connected with schooling atmosphere. Learning of most of the
children under the scheme of the project is low even though they are
intelligent in other aspect of activities.
The alternative is to create special schooling facilities for them, at least
for one or two years of their initial schooling period when each child
will be treated/taught with individual care and attention. After they
have attained certain level of grasping ability, they may be transferred
to other local school attended by general stream of school going
children of the area.

(c) Appointment of a trained teacher: Mr. Rahmani, who is teacher

appointed at the Center and entrusted to imparting elementary
education to the children has been given special training for this
purpose. There have been adopted innovative ways to attract the
children to the Center.
(d) Introduction of innovative and playful methods: It involves
playful methods of teaching using charts, toys. These methods are
used to create their interest in learning of counting, identifying
alphabets in Enlish, Hindi and Urdu language, sentence formation,
writing small stories.

(e)Organizing Social and cultural activities: social and cultural

activities have contributed greatly for their better socialization and in
building their confidence up. It is also experienced that through the
cultural activities children are making good progress into
understanding of their surroundings.

(f) Health monitoring: Health check up of the children under the

project is done regularly in the middle of every month. It has been
helping greatly to monitor the health condition of each child under the
project.

Success of the project: Keeping in view the objectives of the project,

its success can be evaluated on the following grounds:

(i) Enrollment of children: 60 children have been enrolled at the

Center for this session (2010-2011) starts from the month of July,
though the capacity of the project is only for 30 children. Drop out rate
at the Center is zero.

(ii) Better discipline: Children have learnt how to sit in lines and take
part in disciplined way into other social and cultural activities and
learning process at the Center.

(iii) Better socialization: Special and personalized teaching facility

to the children and various innovative social and cultural activities
adopted and conducive environment provided to them at the Center
has considerably enhanced their capacity of socialization.

(iv) Educational awareness: Children taken in under the project

have not only been advancing in their learning but it is also noticed
that the awareness about the elementary education has been
increased in the locality.

(v) Health awareness: Regular health check up on monthly basis

and monitoring of heath condition of each child at the Center with the
help and involvement of guardians and community as such has been
contributing significantly in increasing awareness about health of the
children as well as community at large.
Additional requirements:

As far as the children at the Center is concerned, they come from very
poor economic, social and educational background and need very
special and personalized teaching facilities. For this purpose, at the
Center at least there should be two more trained teachers/activists to
imparting elementary education properly and satisfactorily.

Though under the project few children have been receiving tuition and
some other necessary facilities at the Center but there is large majority
of the children belonging to different age groups still deprived of their
schooling in the locality.
As it has already been mentioned that there is no government school
in the locality, there is an urgent need of initiating two fold campaign
invoking the provisions of Right to Information Act, 2009 to open
government primary schools in the locality so that the right of
elementary education to the children in the locality could be
guaranteed.

For this purpose, the project can also resort to legal course and file a
PIL in the High Court in pursuance of the Right to Education Act, 2009.

Pre Primary Center (PPC) at Sarang Talab

Background of the locality:

This area is composed of mostly scheduled caste and other backward

classes. This area is also very densely populated and people are living
in poverty, illiteracy and very unhygienic conditions. Most of the
children who come to the Center belong to the Kumhar caste and Patel
caste. People belonging to Kumhar Caste has been self employed in
their traditional work of making earthen pots. But as the market for
their product is now very limited, they are forced to do some other
menial jobs like; pulling trolley, rickshaw and working as daily labourer
at construction sites. The same is also true for most of the Patel
families in the area.

Initiatives taken on the part of the Project: In this background,

task of imparting elementary education to the children of 3 to 6 years
of age group in the area was started in October 2009 and following
initiatives were taken to make it effective:

(a) Campaigning with local community: Initially, guardians in the

locality showed a little interest into the elementary education of their
children. But PVCHR from very beginning of this project conducted
intensive campaigning to contact with local community and guardians
to make them understand the importance of elementary education to
their children from very early age. And in due course of time people
started to send their children at the Center.

(b) Special and personalized schooling facilities: Project has

realized that to make its effort truly effective on a body of children as it
has been trying to do since October, 2009; there is a need to provide
special and personalized teaching facilities to the students under the
scheme of the project. Most of them are first time in the school, made
to join the education stream rather reluctantly as they hardly been
connected with schooling atmosphere. Learning of most of the
children under the scheme of the project is low even though they are
intelligent in other aspect of activities.
The alternative is to create special schooling facilities for them, at least
for one or two years of their initial schooling period when each child
will be treated/taught with individual care and attention. After they
have attained certain level of grasping ability, they may be transferred
to other local school attended by general stream of school going
children of the area.

(c) Appointment of a trained teacher: Ms. Bharti Pandey, who is a

teacher appointed at the Center and entrusted to imparting
elementary education to the children has been given special training
for this purpose. She has adopted innovative ways to attract the
children to the Center.

(d) Introduction of innovative and playful methods: It involves

playful methods of teaching using charts, toys. These methods are
used to create their interest in learning of counting, identifying
alphabets in English, Hindi language, sentence formation, writing small
stories.

(e)Organizing Social and cultural activities: social and cultural

activities have contributed greatly for their better socialization and in
building their confidence up. It is also experienced that through the
cultural activities children are making good progress into
understanding of their surroundings.

(f) Health monitoring: Health check up of the children under the

project is done regularly in the middle of every month. It has been
helping greatly to monitor the health condition of each child under the
project.

Success of the project:: Keeping in view the objectives of the

project, its success can be evaluated on the following grounds:
(i) Enrollment of children: 25 children have been enrolled at the
Center for this session (2010-2011) starts from the month of July. New
admission is still going on. Drop out rate at the Center is zero.

(ii) Better discipline: Children have learnt how to sit in lines and take
part in disciplined way into other social and cultural activities and
learning process at the Center.

(iii) Better socialization: Special and personalized teaching facility

to the children and various innovative social and cultural activities
adopted and conducive environment provided to them at the Center
has considerably enhanced their capacity of socialization.

(iv) Educational awareness: Children taken in under the project

have not only been advancing in their learning but it is also noticed
that the awareness about the elementary education has been
increased in the locality.

(v) Health awareness: Regular health check up on monthly basis

and monitoring of heath condition of each child at the Center with the
help and involvement of guardians and community as such has been
contributing significantly in increasing awareness about health of the
children as well as community at large.

Additional requirements:

As far as the children at the Center is concerned, they come from very
poor economic, social and educational background and need very
special and personalized teaching facilities. For this purpose, at the
Center at least there should be two more trained teachers/activists to
imparting elementary education properly and satisfactorily.

Though under the project few children have been receiving tuition and
some other necessary facilities at the Center but there is large majority
of the children belonging to different age groups still deprived of their
schooling in the locality.
As it has already been mentioned that there is no government school
in the locality, there is an urgent need of initiating two fold campaign
invoking the provisions of Right to Information Act, 2009 to open
government primary schools in the locality so that the right of
elementary education to the children in the locality could be
guaranteed.

For this purpose, the project can also resort to legal course and file a
PIL in the High Court in pursuance of the Right to Education Act, 2009.
Baghwanala

Background of the locality:

Baghwanala area is mostly inhabited by economically and socially

marginalized communities. These communities live in the area for
generations under acute adversities i.e. poverty, illiteracy, unhygienic
and filthy conditions. At present, population of these communities is
almost 6500. But there is no government school in the area so that the
children of these people could be able to access free elementary
education.

In this area PVCHR has been running a Full Time Center (FTC) since
2000 in the name of Raja Suheldeve Jan Mitra Shikshan Kendra to
educate the children of disadvantaged groups. PVCHR has been able
to receive financial help from an agency based in Germany in 2008 to
construct a building Raja Suheldeve Jan Mitra Shikshan Kendra. Since
2009 under the project of Quality Education funded by Sir Dorab Ji Tata
Trust, PVCHR has been doing excellent job to impart elementary
education up to the fifth standard to the poor children from this Center.

Other initiatives taken on the part of the Project: Under the

project following initiatives have been taken to effectively impart the
elementary education to the children in the area:

(a) Campaigning with local community: Initially, guardians in the

locality showed a little interest into the elementary education of their
children. But PVCHR from very beginning of this project conducted
intensive campaigning to contact with local community and guardians
to make them understand the importance of elementary education to
their children from very early age. And in due course of time people
started to send their children at the Center.

(b) Special and personalized schooling facilities: Project has

realized that to make its effort truly effective on a body of children as it
has been trying to do since October, 2009; there is a need to provide
special and personalized teaching facilities to the students under the
scheme of the project. Most of them are first time in the school, made
to join the education stream rather reluctantly as they hardly been
connected with schooling atmosphere. Learning of most of the
children under the scheme of the project is low even though they are
intelligent in other aspect of activities.
The alternative is to create special schooling facilities for them, at least
for one or two years of their initial schooling period when each child
will be treated/taught with individual care and attention. After they
have attained certain level of grasping ability, they may be transferred
to other local school attended by general stream of school going
children of the area.

(c) Special training to the teachers at the Center: Five teachers

and one principal teacher have been given special training, keeping in
view the required sensitivity to deal with such a body of children drawn
from very poor social and educational background.

(d) Introduction of innovative and playful methods: It involves

playful methods of teaching using charts, toys. These methods are
used to create their interest in learning of counting, identifying
alphabets in Enlish, Hindi language, sentence formation, writing small
stories etc.

(e)Organizing Social and cultural activities: Children are

encouraged to participate in social and cultural activities not only to
learn school curricula but for better socialization and understanding of
their surroundings. Bal Sabha, Bal Panchayat, Kishori Baithak, Wall
writing, Street Drama etc are some popular means to increase
awareness among the children. These activities have contributed
greatly for their better socialization and in building their confidence up.

(f) Health monitoring: Health check up of the children under the

project is done regularly in the middle of every month. It has been
helping greatly to monitor the health condition of each child under the
project.

Library facility: Children, at the Center, are provided with library

facility and other means of easy learning like charts, toys etc.

Success of the project:: Keeping in view the objectives of the

project, its success can be evaluated on the following grounds:

(i) Enrollment of children: There are total 94 children at the Center

studying from class one to class five. As per data available on 20
August, there are 21 students in class one, 28 students in class two, 27
students in class three, 11 students in class four and only 6 students in
class five. The education level of the children is very low as most of
them are first time school goers. Under the project, 22o families of
Malin Basti have been targeted but there are many other children from
other disadvantaged groups in the area have been enrolled at the
Center. Drop out rate of the children at the Center is zero.
(ii) Better discipline: Children have learnt how to sit in lines and take
part in disciplined way into other social and cultural activities and
learning process at the Center.

(iii) Better socialization: Special and personalized teaching facility

to the children and various innovative social and cultural activities
adopted and conducive environment provided to them at the Center
has considerably enhanced their capacity of socialization and learning.

(iv) Educational awareness: Children taken in under the project

have not only been advancing in their learning but it is also noticed
that the awareness about the elementary education has been
increased in the locality.

(v) Health awareness: Regular health check up on monthly basis

and monitoring of heath condition of each child at the Center with the
help and involvement of guardians and community as such has been
contributing significantly in increasing awareness about health of the
children as well as community at large.

Main streaming: It is a big success on the part of the project that 20

children, who had been the students of class five last year at the
Center, have been given support to get enrolled in neighboring
Sudhakar Inter College for their further studies. It could be considered
a big success of the project as to developing the capacity of the
children belonging to the most marginalized communities so that they
could be able to join main stream education with other children.

Additional requirements:

As far as the children at the Center is concerned, they come from very
poor economic, social and educational background and need very
special and personalized teaching facilities. For this purpose, at the
Center at least there should be five more trained teachers/activists to
increase functional capacity of the Center.

Though under the project few children have been receiving tuition and
some other necessary facilities at the Center but there is large majority
of the children belonging to different age groups still deprived of their
schooling in the locality.
As it has already been mentioned that there is no government school
in the locality, there is an urgent need of initiating two fold campaign
invoking the provisions of Right to Information Act, 2009 to open
government primary schools in the locality so that the right of
elementary education to the children in the locality could be
guaranteed.
For this purpose, the project can also resort to legal course and file a
PIL in the High Court in pursuance of the Right to Education Act, 2009.
i
Human Rights expert and LLM(Human Rights) from Hong Kong University