Report on Sri Ramacharan Charitable Trust
- Sridhar Subramanian, Feb 12, 2003
Summary:
SRCT maintains tuition centers in 3 schools (Kumararaja Muthiah Chettiar school
in Adyar, Rani Meyammai school in Mandavali, and V.P. Koil Secondary Education
Corporation School, in Mylapore). Of these, I visited 2. I also visited a
primary education Corporation school which is being considered for adoption.
In relation to this, I visited the Deputy Commisioner (Education & Parks)
who could facilitate SRCT's adoption process.
The school on the left is being considered for adoption. It is a primary education corporation school for the lower grades (1-6). In a corporation school, the students don't have to pay anything to study. However, the quality of the teachers is rather poor, and due to an arcane method of counting students, sometimes the government does not allocate enough teachers to these schools.
The students of this particular class are unsupervised, and left to study on the school grounds.
The school (adopted by SRCT) on the right is a corporation school as well, but for the higher grades. This school is in the vicinity of the school above, and is very well run. This is mostly due to its principal who took personal interest in the well-being and education of the children. He was also an inspiration to the teachers.
Here, they are all gathered for a meal provided in part by SRCT. The government provides the rice, and SRCT provides the lentils. Although the intention of the meal was to feed the students before making them sit for after-school tuition, the students preferred eating afterward. Eating before doing their homework, "made them too sleepy" was the complaint.
The students seemed generally happier, and more eager to learn than their lower-grade counterparts. According to the principal, there are about 4 boys to every 6 girls, which is good. What was not good to hear is that boys are often at work with their parents, and this accounts for the lower number of boys.
Unfortunately, many schools do not want NGOs to intervene to provide augmentary services. It is often upto the principal of the school to welcome or reject the overtures of SRCT. To address this issue, we met with an IAS (Indian Administrative Services) officer, who was the Deputy Commisioner for Education & Parks. He was very helpful, and offered to write letters of recommendation on behalf of SRCT. Coming from his office, a recommendation would seem more of a mandate to the schools, which can only help SRCT's cause.
This is one of the classrooms in the same higher-grade corporation school where an after-school program is being conducted. In the back is the principal, and the teacher conducting the after-school program.