Report on Schools

We have visited some of the schools in Tiruvarur district in the last week of March 2006 This report is restricted only to primary and secondary schools and we have not covered higher secondary schools. In order to make the size of this report small, we have summarized the overall findings that are common to all the schools. We will try to mail you the reports of each school individually, if possible.

Overall Findings:
In 4 out of 5 schools visited, we could not meet the  Headmasters since they all were in a meeting at DEO office. We met the teachers in these schools who were very helpful to us in giving us the details about the students and the school. The overall findings of the visit were really surprising and since our founder was a student of one such school for 5 years, we can surely say that there has been no change in the Education Standards of the Government schools, except that they are getting free books from the government now and the new buildings that are constructed are from the government funds.

Due to the Central Government SSI Scheme (?Anivarukkum Kalvi Iyakkam? in Tamil), the schools are provided with enough funds to construct buildings and to buy other stationeries for the school. Some of the plans they are implementing under SSI are:

-> Separate classes are conducted for the drop-outs from the schools.
-> Special coaching class for the SC and ST candidates to raise their education standards.

Important Problems Faced:
1. Lack of Teachers for lower grade classes (I- V classes)
In an average, a school with classes from 1-5 have a maximum of 3 teachers including Headmaster, so the classes are combined not between sections but between standards (or example, III & IV). In some schools the teachers themselves have appointed a temporary teacher for handling the classes and are paying the salary for the temporary teacher from their salary. Although quite unbelievable the fact is, the salary, a graduate is expecting for functioning as a temporary teacher is just Rs.500 to Rs.700 a month and still the government is not increasing the number of teachers corresponding to the number of students.

2. Lack of basic academic amenities like Notebooks and uniforms.
The government is providing only free books but not note-books. You might know that a pre-KG student in a private school might require 20 note-books per year. But these students could do with around 5 notebooks per year.

The government is providing only one set of Uniform per year. And nearly 80% of the students are not in a position to get another one and they are managing with the old uniform that they got for the previous year. It costs  just Rs.100 per student.

Our Agenda based on our visit:
Our main aim is not only to concentrate on more number of villages as the ?Arichuvadi? trust grows in terms of members, but also to start with concentrate on making a village school which would be a model for rest of the schools. We need people all over the world to come forward and promote the development activities of schools in their own area. Please give your thought to this and propagate this agenda of helping the needy students. A group of 20 can bring light in the lives of 200 people provided every individual is ready to spare at least 1% of their time and money every year.