Tuition Center and Micro-credit programs (SRCT)
Background:
Education
remains one of India's biggest problems. An estimated 44% of the population
aged 15 years and above, is illiterate (source: UNESCO, 2000). In this target
population, almost 6 of 10 females are illiterate (57.9%), whereas for males,
3 of 10 are illiterate (31.4%).
Sri Ramacharan Charitable Trust (SRCT),
which is based in Chennai in South India, has focused on three aspects of
education:
- providing needy children tuition assistance in the form of micro credit, and,
- providing children after-school tuition.
- augmenting the curriculum of schools in English instruction and introducing
innovative teaching methods like the Montessori method.
In February, 2003, Sridhar Subramanian visited SRCT, and reported on his findings.
Micro Credit:
This got started when lower middle class parents approached them for help to pay the school fees of their children. They find it difficult to pay the school fees all of which are due at the beginning of the school term. Loans are to be repaid in small installments before the end of the school year.
Why is this necessary?
This is best explained with a personal anecdote from Sridhar Subramanian, which creates a cultural framework for why this works.
In December 2000, I visited SRCT. A gathering of the beneficiaries from its programs were assembled. About 40 people including children were there, some of whom traveled 3 hrs to get there. Several of the benefactors came up on stage and spoke. One was a grandmother of two boys and a girl. The girl was about to start her 10th standard, and her father refused to pay for it. His position was that it was time to get her married. The grandmother, on the other hand wouldn't hear of it. She asked for and got a micro credit loan from SRCT.
The girl came up and spoke, and her words were both moving and illuminating. She felt blessed that when her relatives wouldn't even give her Rs 100 ($2) as a loan, here were strangers having faith in her, and willing to give her Rs 1500 ($30). In her culture where devotion to God, and simple values like trust and faith were cherished, this loan was an act of faith that she had to repay in kind.
Others came up and spoke, and everyone echoed this theme of faith and trust, which is what made SRCT part of the community.
After-school programs:
After-school programs are held in schools where the children study. Teachers are hired by SRCT, and help the students go over the day's lectures and complete their homework.
Children are either from lower-middle class families or from poor families. Children from poor families study at free schools, known as "corporation schools".
Why is this necessary?
Reasons are similar to those in the US: poverty, lack of a suitable space for children to study, no one to teach and guide them, bad peer infuences, ie. not many peers to mentor and encourage them, etc.
This was true not only for the marginalized castes (scheduled caste, etc), but also for the "poor brahmins". One such incident related to Sridhar Subramanian, is recorded here:
Ishwarya is a bright girl of about 16 who wants to excel in studies, but feels she doesn't have any place to study. Ishwarya's father passed away when she was 2. Since her mother had mental problems, she was looked after by her grandparents. Her grandfather earns about Rs 2500/month ($50), but he needed to support all of his 3 children. Ishwarya, her elder brother, her aunt with a newborn baby, all lived with him in a cramped house in Triplicane.
Montessori Programs:
Sri Ramacharan Trust has recently embarked on an ambitious program to use the Montessori method of education to teach kindergarten children in the corporation schools, something that is getting a lot of publicity. It is planning to take this method and apply it other corporation schools.
Sri Ramacharan has made this video to explain the Monetessori method.
Reports and Accounts from SRCT:
2008
Oct: Report on Slum Children project (Balwadi) in Saidapet
Oct: Report on Slum Children project (Balwadi) in Thiruvanmiyur
2007
2006
Aug 1: Report
2005
End of year: Report
Press story in The Hindu on Montessori system.
2004
2003
2003: Accounts
2002
June-October 2002: Accounts and Report