Children & Education Today Methodology Projects News & Events Feedback I Can Help About Sivasri Trust FAQ Contact Us
 
Archive - Aug'02
Archive - Sep'02
Archive - Dec'02
Home / News & Events
News & Events
Feb '03 - Library movement in our schools

You will be surprised to hear this: the second most difficult subject for a primary school student to pass in an open examination is Kannada, which happens to be the mother tongue! The causes were not far to seek. The child has little, if not nil, exposure to the skills of reading and writing outside the school, while it does have lots of opportunities to converse in diverse languages, not just Kannada, in its environment. No wonder it is able to pick up the ability to speak most of them in a remarkably short time, with little to show by way of reading and writing skills.

We wanted to correct this through a library movement which will provide an opportunity to the child to acquire these skills, outside the curriculum- at home and at its own pace. Naturally this will have a significant impact on the ability of the child to handle the curriculum as well. The present library hour system in other schools dumps a few unattractive books on the kids- books not of their choice and to be gone through for an hour a week at the school and not to be taken home.

We tried a unique experiment in this context: A few students were chosen from across all grades in the School at C’Sandra and sent on a day trip with an escort to a major book store in the heart of the City, for browsing and selecting books of their own choice. And they have been given the responsibility to decide on and spend Rs 2000 on their own! None of these kids have ever been inside a book shop in their lives. It was a memorable and eye opening experience for each one of them! Now there is an air of excitement and thrill every Saturday morning when the library hour commences. There is a scramble for books among the kids, and they make it a point now to read the books they take home. They are also encouraged to narrate the stories they have read to the class during the next library hour.

We have now extended the scheme to four of our schools; by next year all Sikshana schools will have this program in operation. The results, to say the least, are awesome! Most of the kids in Grade III are now able to read fluently a Kannada story book or a Newspaper column. In the process we have also been able to explode a few myths concerning the behavioral aspects of these kids. We plan to bring out the results of this experiment on a quantified basis through an external audit shortly.

 
Volunteering – Phase II
With increasing activities both in and off the field, Sikshana is in need of more and more volunteers. During the last few months, we have been trying to establish direct contacts with the social action groups of large corporates in the City. This has now come to a decisive stage, with the formation of the first cluster in Oracle India, comprising of more than 15 volunteers who would like to devote time and effort to our cause. Meetings were held during the month to identify areas in which their interest and expertise could be utilized.

As a result, a first group of three volunteers have started functioning in the school at C’Sandra. They are presently concentrating on PC based education and other co-curricular activities like improving spoken English, mostly during weekends. They are also assisting the staff in improving the facilities and the environment in the school. A second group has just been formed to help out the school at Ittimadu with similar objectives. A third group has offered to work for the cause of identifying/ creating/ helping to create/ providing multimedia content for use with the Computers in the primary schools. Additional groups are being formed.
More such programs and options are being developed to provide a challenging environment to this emerging force, within the limits of the parameters given by them for their involvement. At present, we have an active list of more than 20 volunteers, waiting for deployment. Sikshana is on the move towards the second phase of its evolution!

 
Sikshana Strengthened

Our Trust has been further strengthened with the addition of two more active members, who are totally dedicated to the cause of Public Education. They are Shri K Ravindra and Shri M Prabhakaran who, in addition to their commitment, also bring in with them considerable experience and expertise in their respective fields at the highest level.
K Ravindra, President, Vertexperts, has been in the IT industry for the past 16 years. He started with Tata Unisys after his Mechanical engineering degree and spent many years outside of the country in the US, UK and Switzerland. He left TUL in 1995 to help start a Business and Software consulting venture called EWI Business Consulting. Oracle Corporation acquired this company and renamed it as Oracle Solution Services in 1999. He left Oracle in Feb 2003 as the Executive Director of their offshore consulting division and is currently in the process of establishing an independent organization. His special professional interests include Business and strategy consulting, application of new technology and change management. He is a regular speaker at seminars and is also on the board of several companies in an advisory capacity. On a personal level, he has a passionate interest in the public education system, which will help Sikshana in realizing its objectives.

M Prabhakaran had spent more than forty years in Industry, ending up in a Senior Management position in a public sector unit. He is an internationally recognized expert on Frequency Control Devices and Techniques. He has a deep and abiding personal interest in the field of public education. He has been instrumental in giving a shape to the entire program, right from the stage of its inception.

 
           
      
      
      
      
       
      
      
      
                  
Mr.K. Ravi
All rights reserved.©Sikshana