GOVERNEMENT SCHOOL OUTREACH PROGRAM

Educating the young NOT just with books!

India is one of the youngest nations on the planet. The spending on education is 2.1% of the GDP and the condition is worse than the public toilets. We would want to reach out to the government schools and work on three major aspects, the infrastructure, the teacher’s training and parent counseling. Our approach to teach students would be focused to spark curiosity in children about the very nature of life, the vast cosmos and it’s functioning, at a early stage in their primary level of schooling, to inculcate critical thinking approach towards problem solving and reason based learning, in the secondary level of schooling, practical knowledge through hands-on approach with a strong backing of evolutionary theoretical knowledge for graduation level of schooling.

There are nearly 18000 odd Government schools across Karnataka. Condition of most of the schools are worst than the public toilets.

Most of the schools have one or two teachers catering to over 50 students and handling all the subjects. These are primary and secondary schools.

The school kitchen caters mid-day meals which are of sub-standard quality.

There are no benches, tables, fans, lights, playgrounds or office accessories.

The infrastructure of the schools is such, they can fall apart anytime.

There are no proper toilet facilities.

Teaching is out of question.

There are numerous organizations that have assessed these drawbacks and have been reaching out to some of the schools. They are performing well but these are not enough. There are fellowships such as Teach for India which takes schools in rural India and their fellows work closely with these schools for a year or two.

The funds received from Governments aren’t enough to fulfill the needs of the school.

Taking all these into account, we decided to chart out a plan to visit all the 18000 odd schools in a span of 5 years. The cluster of schools would consist of fellows in the ratio of 1:100, for every 100 students there will one fellow who will be taking care of all the above given drawbacks. The fellow may be handling 2-3 schools together or 2-3 fellows handling a single school.

The project will start off with a rally where the group of fellows will pay a visit to all the schools together, talk to the concerned authorities, sign a MoU. The rally would be flagged off in all the 30 districts of Karnataka. Stay for these fellows will be arranged in the school premises and the stay would be for the next 5 years.

Once the above conditions are met, the fellows will now start approaching philanthropists who will be ready to adopt these schools. All the donors will be given a rough budget that would require their support for the 5 years. Group of donors can come together and take up the responsibility, but the main requirement would be that the adoption commitment should be 5 years. Once we have the funds required, the program to fulfill the needs of the school would start.

The aim is to make these government schools a place where the future generation of Gandhians and Ambetkarites come up not just seeing them on the portraits and byhearting their achievements but actually becoming capable enough to work on bringing their dreams of equal rights and Swarajya to the society we live in.