Government Education in Bangalore

Quick win
One area where we can help is coming up with checklist to rate the schools and have a praja rating system for the best run govt school in the state (start with BLR) which will be validated and approved by govt/experts. Praja volunteers and working groups can participate in the annual rating exercise with the help of the education dept.

Medium term plan
First, Set up a working group to collect all opinions, ideas, earlier reports & studies done on the methods to improve govt school system. Second, Define the desired state for these schools. Third, brainstorm the methods and expenses and put up a timebound roadmap to take these schools to excellence. Implementing them and monitoring them has to be done by a govt. authority.

This is nothing specific to govt. education; it applies to other initiatives too. I think a majority would get interested in volunteering/charity if they can connect themselves with the big picture. If you can convince them that their efforts would impact in a quantifiable way, more people would help unconditionally.

Open ended requests (like "please help whatever you can") would always create a block in one’s mind. The chances of success is more if you ask specific help and show them how exactly and to what extent it is going to help solve the issues.

A simple example: Every year we have drives in our company calling for volunteers and donations towards education (probably a part/full of it goes to Akshara foundation). This year, we were able to sponsor for about 4 times more underprivileged children than last year!! How was this possible? Last year's campaign just highlighted the issues (the big picture) and called for donations. But this year, with that, it was made clear of the amount (Rs. X) that is required to support one child. So, more employees could connect with it and they could see the kind of impact it would have on one child if they donated Rs. X.

Hence my suggestion is to define what you need clearly. For example: “2 hours of one person’s time on Saturdays for 3 months would help 10 children learn basics of arithmetic, which otherwise they wouldn’t.” OR “Rs. 5000 per year would support a child’s all education needs” and so on.

This is the most noble thing one can do to help our society. IF each of us can volunteer in each of these schools we can definitely make a difference. I would like to be a part of this program. My only hinderence at this point is Iam out of the country and will be interested to do anything from my side that could immediately be of help and also want to be on list to volunteer when  I am back..

SB,

I was not attacking you.  Sorry if it came out that way. 

On this one at least - there has to be die-hard committment from anyone who volunteers.  Our drop out rate cannot be worse than the students :). 

Srivathsa

 It is time everybody start working towards strengthening the education system, specially elementary and secondary education. This is  a task that neither can be achieved overnight nor can be a one time volunteer oppurtunity. Before I discuss about volunteers, let me put forth the few basic points about what ails the primary education in our country, Bangalore in particular.

1. Facilities - I don't think any govt school located in B'lore can confidently claim that it has a reasonable facilities for its tecahers, staff and students. Majority are in pathetic conditions. 

2. Teachers and Staff - Even though more and more teachers are appointed every year, still the Student/Teacher ratio is very high in the range of 50:1.

3. Quality of Teaching - There would be only few exceptions we can say with certainty that are truly doing the justice to the students and the country. The quality has gone so low that, even after 5-7 years of schooling, students are still struggling to read and write proper sentences, be it in English or Kannada. The key to education is ability to read, write and comprehend. If students can not read and write, I don't know whether they should be called literate by any standards? I am not sure after getting the appointments, how many teachers have read a book or upgraded their knowledge and skills.

 One can write pages and pages on each of the above listed reasons. I am sure you got the gist of my discussion here. Therefore it is important that we first identify the root causes for such a bad situation in education sectors and network with all the stake holders to find the remedies and fixes.

  My own experience with my children and the programs that I volunteer at, tells me that children by the age of 7-8 yrs (2nd or 3rd grade) should be able to read fluently and write small descriptive sentences. If we can achieve this in all schools, believe me the standard and quality of their eductaion would take  a leap. Because other subjects like social, science and Math are all about descriptions and understanding. Once you have empowered the child with tools to read and write, they will be on their own. If you can't read and write, you can't do well in Math, science and social studies? If you can't read and understand what the question how are you going to write. Therefore it is very important to equip every child with ability to read, comprehend and write.

 Therefore I would suggest that all the efforts to be in 2 prongs. 

1. Help the High school entrants (8th grade) with skills in reading and writing. They should be helped to read and write in atleast 2 langauges Kannada and English. Also High School teachers should be forced to enhance their skills and knowledge level. Incentive/Pay increase linkage would be helpful.
2. More resources and skills to be placed on ensuring that there are Reading and Writing requirements/standards are met by every child in the Primary/Elementary schools. Teachers, Staff and school management should be held responsible for achieving those results

 Also it is very important to understand that, government should play a greater role in education system. If it is left to private, poor and lower middle class are at mercy of these sharks.

 There should be a standard recruitment policy for teachers and educators, followed by policy for getting certified every 3 years for continuing in teh job. Off couarse they all need to be paid reasonably good salary and perks based on their performance.

TS,

 Thanks for those concise comliments. You have uplifted my spirits to write more on this.

 Continuing from my earlier posting, in education sector, everybody knows what is failing and what has failed. It is the standard of basic education. In elementary education it is the basic reading, writing and comprehension. Along with capability to count and keep an account of earning/spending. This is the basic requirement which we see has not been met over a period of 2 to 3 decades. There are various ways to mitigate the situation. Here are my humble suggestions, particularly to government schools in Bangalore and its sub-urbs.

1. Facilities - This is the area that we can help the government to uplift the school 's basic facilities. Every school should have toilets, safe drinking water and electricity. I am sure there are many among us would be ready to lend a helping gladly.

2. Teaching Materials - This is another area where public can pitch into fill the gaps left by Govt and its babus. Time to come up with a standard list of things that is a must in every school like Charts, Books in Library, laboratory, Clay Models etc.

3. Teacher Training & Evaluation - Biggest contribution that we can do for teachers is to boost their morale and remind them of their noble profession, their responsibility and changes that they can bring individuals and society. They should be recognized and encouraged to enhance their skill levels and bring in thier new ideas. Their promotions and salary increases to be linked with their performance. A regulatory/certification body to regularly evaluate thier competence in teaching and new skills.

4. Text Books - This is a area, I am yet to come up with a relative ease in ensuring that every child gets text books at reasonable/affordable price. I am looking forward for the Suggestions in this area.

5. Evaluation System - Atleast we should demand a scientific and doable system/authority for evaluating every child's progress followed by necessary steps tp help the child in boosting his learning capacity to recah the required levels. Volunteers can help teh schools in working with such kids that needs help. A group of 4 - 5 students with 1 volunteer would certainly help the process of helping children to learn.

6. School participation in community Works - Volunteers can help schools participate in community work like Parks Clean Up, Save Energy campaigns, Safe Driving, No to smoking etc. 

7. Intensive Reading and Writing Camps -  Start programs/institute that offers intensive programs for children to improve their reading and writing abilities. These can be held during Holidays specially in summer.

These are some of my thoughts and hope that Praja community would consider this for a definite community project.

 These are based on the personal experiences from a activist who is working on one such project. Such an effort is in progress in Bangalore ( at a Muslim Orphanage school). It will take 2-3 years to see the desire results. There has been success in facility wise and working on academics part.

 Syed 

Regarding govt. schools I have a suggestion

It is quite true and well known that the Karnataka Govt. spends Rs 500 crores on Govt. schools; but the condition of Govt. schools is pathetic.

What we can do is that under RTI, we can ask how much money is spent on which school and in what way? that will set right things to a large extent

Srinath Heragu

Guys I just read this on TOI and was immediately thinking - wow this was a topic on Praja and TOI has  made it national. UNfortunately Bangalore is not a part of this campaign in the first phase of their effort. Hope we can make a difference.

TOI Report Below -------------------------------------------------------------------
This one came straight from our heart. And the response has been truly heart-warming.

On the day The Times of India launched the Teach India campaign to educate underprivileged children, the front page said that the aim of this effort is to set up India's largest classroom, whose walls are the four corners of the country.

From the number of applications received in less than three days, it is evident that our hopes were not misplaced.

The idea of Teach India has struck an instant chord, with more than 10,000 people signing up to pledge at least two hours a week to teach a child in their neighbourhood, mostly for weekend sessions. This army of volunteers is a multi-lingual, multi-talented one drawn from diverse streams - doctors, lawyers, company executives, educationists, actors, businessmen, housewives, writers, artists, retired folk, government employees and, most hearteningly, college students.

 Rest is here :)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Over_10000_sign_up_for_Teach_India/articleshow/3212279.cms

In a nutshell it means that education is getting lower priority (% of spending)

revenue expenditure means things like salaries.  this is in contrast to capital expenditure - new schools, adding buildings and classrooms, etc. This may not be a completely bad thing in itself.  E.g. if existing schools are adding teachers, it is a very good thing (as long as teachers don't just turn up on salary day).  But 98% is very high. 

Nominal expenditure is up - means at todays prices.  So if cost of things is up (salaries, books, chalk,etc), the increased spending is being taken up to a large extent by higher costs.  Real expenditure would be lower (real expenditure tries to estimate actual physical growth - more teachers, more schools, etc etc).

I do not know how much we're spending as a % of SDP.  That should ideally be 6-8% of SDP. 

Hope this helps.

Srivathsa