Progress in the Kanakapura schools - First Cluster - 2007-08

HM's meet and a new challenge

The 2007-08 school year started off with an all HM's meet with the program director in the second week of June. Last year's school expenses item heads was reviewed and suggestions were taken. The unanimous opinion was that the spot prizes were having a huge impact in motivating the students and they indicated that the program be continued and if possible the budget also increased for that item head. Majority of the schools found that the percent allocation per item head was appropriate.

One of the items that came out of this meet was that the HM's wanted to take up a new challenge where five students each from class 6 and 7 who scored the

lowest in the previous academic exam were identified and put under charge of two teachers. On Sep 12th a prelim exam was conducted for these students. Another exam will be conducted in Feb '08 for the same set of students and the teacher-student unit that shows the best improvement will be rewarded.

Increased emphasis on dictation and writing

One of the programs that have received an increased impetus this year is the dictation and writing drills. Our mentors in the field are highlighting the need to increase the frequency of dictation and also practice writing using library books as reference. Teachers are encouraged to keep a log of dictations they give so that they themselves can rate how well they have been able to focus on this aspect. Also to improve writing skills each student is given 8 sheets of paper. They are encouraged to write at least 2 pages each day and every time they finish a sheet of paper they submit it to the teacher and obtain another blank sheet. More and more schools are now getting on board this program and we hope to report a successful program at the end of the year.

Library - Sapna bookstore expedition

Like last year this year also all the schools in the cluster visited the Sapna book store in Jayanagar, Bangalore in batches of 5 schools. This year also we got some excellent speakers from the art and literary fields who inspired the kids on the need to read especially non-text book material. 

This year since we have an office in kanakapura we have decided to store all the books selected by the teachers in the office as a teacher's library. With each school buying Rs1000 worth of books for the teachers we now have a sizable collection for the teacher's library.

This year we asked the teachers to talk of the importance of return on investment on library books. Once the kids selected the books they sat around with the teachers to reselect them based on the constraint that the budget was Rs1000.  Kids were made aware of difference of cost of paperback vs. hardbound books, etc.

Delhi Trip Quiz

The Delhi trip has gained new level of popularity now. In fact some schools have one of their goals for the year as to get one of their students selected for the trip. 

As before Amruth Foundation was kind enough to conduct a quiz competition on July 25th. This year about 40% of the marks were general knowledge and half of the task

were interactive in nature. One unique test this year was one where students were asked to identify not so common vegetables, fruits, flowers, grains etc. It was a full day session where 102 kids participated and it was conducted in the Rotary Bhavan in Kanakapura. 15 kids and two teachers were eventually selected for the trip. Those who participated but could not make it were also suitably rewarded.

The trip conducted in Nov 07 was a great success as in the last few years. The reception to the kids on their return organized by the schools and the community was heartwarming! For their part, the kids have learnt a lot about the essential life skills, not the least of which are the abilities to express themselves and to organize their personal routine. The overwhelming response from the parents is that they look and behave very differently now!

Introduction of Note Books for multi-media based learning

Every school in the cluster was provided with one Desktop and one Note Book for their exclusive use. The result of this experiment exceeded our expectations by a large margin. A detailed report may be seen at

http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2007/12/notebook-computer-one-year-later.html#links

A child’s perspective of Sikshana across the digital divide may be seen under the following link:

http://sikshana.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-is-sikshana-childs-perspective.html#links

More such feedbacks are pouring in. Considering the unique nature of the intervention, we can truly state that we have taken a significant step towards bridging the digital divide.

Scholarships

The scholarship program has extended to two batches this year, covering 44 students in 8^th Grade and 42 in 9^th.  We are also closely following the progress of these awardees through high schooling to ensure that this vast pool of talent is properly nurtured. Information on the scholarship holders is posted regularly on the net in our web site. A significant impact of the program can be seen from the response of a kid who was asked the key question: will the Sikshana School not lose his talent once he goes on to the high school with the scholarship. He said: “I will keep coming back to my school to teach my juniors during the holidays, not just while I study in the High School but also after I get a job too”. 

Impact of Sikshana

The impact of Sikshana on the schools is measured as before with two criteria: the bi-annual tests conducted on APF/KSQOA models and the follow up of kids getting Grades below B at the semester examinations. The result of the former is reproduced below:  

During the course of the ensuing year, we are  proposing to add a qualitative self assessment based on the work of APF reproduced below:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dwdqjhw_113cj36xn&hl=en

To cap it all, we got ourselves audited by KPMG this year, a first of its type among NGO’s in the country. Their report is given under:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dwdqjhw_137grkcbq4z

This report by a firm of international repute, taken along with the assessment results, confirms the fact that Sikshana is having a significant impact on the schools in which the program is being implemented and that it continues to be a cost effective intervention.