Visit to Kaorakhali schools

Visitor: Sam Murthy, 952 294-1085,

Date: 02/15/2007

Getting to the schools

From Kolkata's Sealdah station took the Lakshikantpur local to Jaynagar. Trains leave as early as 5 am. Our train left at 6 am.

8 am: reached Jaynagar and took auto to Kaorakhali. Any auto from Jaynagar ought to be able to get from Jaynagar to the hamlets.

Reached Kaorakhali at 9 am.

The nearest village to the schools is Jamtola. Jamtola has proper roads and infrastructure. Kaorakhali and Purba Gabtola are hamlets surrounded by fields. The hamlets are on raised areas – the fields all around are a lower elevation and are probably soaked with water a good portion of the year. There are narrow brick lanes winding through the fields and hamlets and are a bumpy and sometimes precarious ride.

Note about translator

Soumya Roy who brought the KJSA project to Asha arranged for me to go with Mr. Asu Sarkar. Mr. Sarkar is a career social worker, 35 years of experience, who works for an organization called Church of North India. Mr. Sarkar manages their community health program for 4 states. Mr. Sarkar explained clearly that his work is not about proselytizing and in fact has a Hindu wife and lives with his in-laws. Mr. Sarkar is very knowledgeable about rural affairs. Mr. Sarkar wrote the original project proposal for KJSA; Bimal da had heard about him and sought his assistance in locating funding for the schools. Mr. Sarkar took no compensation for spending this day working with me.

Mr. Sarkar is available for future site visits in the region. He would need travel expenses and would accept reasonable compensation. Though we are an all-volunteer organization I think we should consider the opportunity of using his services. He has more experience in this field than any of us and it costs a fraction of an airfare to Kolkata to retain him to visit KJSA and indeed any other Asha projects.

School visit Journal

Kaorakhali North at 10 am – currently funded

Teachers are KN:

Hare Krishna Mondal (KHM):

a Montessori trained teacher says of this technique:

Develops an attitude for education

Physical development through games

Initial knowledge of calculation and language

Get a sense of numbers from size and fit of toys

Stories that have morals and give knowledge.

Displays that stimulate identification and comparison.

There are many useful teaching techniques that cannot be used because of lack of space and durable materials. Montessori books cost about Rs. 30 each that are more fun – we should distribute these to kids. [SM: why not give them a fund to buy 100 books and make a library and pass these books around to kids? This would be a ridiculously cheap $70 per school and think of the benefit!]

Midday meals portions are small compared to the more substantial bulgur cereal given to kids previously

Pre-writing templates are useful and need more of them.

Once a month HKM gives Montessori style training for teachers, but this is only theory and until they get materials they cannot put it to practice.

Pandu Gopal Naskar (PGN): the teaching is through materials and there aren't enough materials. It is unfortunate for teachers to have to worry about wear and tear because that prevents effective and free use of teaching aids – these are made by teachers and necessarily from flimsy materials. School needs money to buy durable teaching aids.

Namita Haldar: need more permanent partitions of room to improve attention of kids. Health checkups would be good as well.

About 70 students are present and the room is cramped and there is barely any walking space without stepping on the students belongings. There are 3 lessons happening at the same time and it is quite a commotion. Usually they have curtains separating the room into 3 to make it more manageable – but it is still quite a din. Some kids are of course not following the lesson, but at this age group the attention span is understandable. HKM is using Montessori aids. Story time led by PGN gets children's attention and they also interact in the story.

The roof and rafters are complete in this room and it is attached to the house of Bimal da. The walls are not finished. Lighting and ventilation are barely adequate. It is a wet day but since the floor is elevated it is only damp. There are mats/waterproof bags for the children to sit on.

Talked to 3 mothers: each has 1 child in the KN school. All are housewives and are part of the self help groups (microcredit programs pervasive in rural India). One of the mothers rolls beedies (indigenous cigarette product) for income and they are all harvest time help. Their husbands are agriculture laborers.

Mothers report to be happy with the school service. If not for this school the kids would be home – there are no govt pre-primary schools. Basic education is important otherwise kids are not ready for primary school; "child would not stand in competition if not for this school". 1 mother feels the meal is critical source of food and it motivates her child to attend school without a lot of persuasion; another (more well to do) feels she would force her child to come to school anyway.

Mothers request a larger school room; the current room is too cramped.

Kaorakhali South (KS) 11:30 am

School is on the other side of the hamlet. About 50 students present. There is better ventilation here. The structure is still unfinished. 1 st standard is also available for kids who are unwilling to make the journey to the govt school.

Salaries: teachers are not receiving any money (this is news). The previous funding ran out and there is not even money to pay their Rs. 500/mth as we had believed. The teachers are working purely on volunteer basis.

Teachers:

  1. Manasi Mondal: says more teaching materials are needed.
  2. Nasiruddin Laskar:

Roofing needs to be fixed or classes cant run in the rainy season

  1. Teachers are 100% volunteers, no salary currently
  2. Teachers are told that funding might emerge later
  3. Requests meals to be given to kids
  4. Subrata Mondal:

Provide health monitoring

  1. Some sports/games arrangements would be nice since there are 1st standard children. Ground is available but needs to be improved

Also met Krishna Dhan Mondal: emeritus teacher who owns land of KS school.

He requests us to improve the school building.

Toilets and water source are important because otherwise children have to go home.

Jamtola school at 1 pm

Teachers

  1. Jaydeb Naskar
  2. Kamdeb Naskar

About 40 students present. This school looks less functional. Kids have been learning alphabet and numbers today. Kids are able recite poems and sing songs. Local person has donated land for building and it needs upgrades.

Purba Gabtola school at 1:50 pm – currently funded

This school is a long drive from Jamtola village on the country lanes. This school started in 1993 by the vision of Jaykrishna Sardar who runs the school in his own house. Substantially most of his space is devoted to the school and he uses only 1 small room for his family. This teacher is very impressive and is highly respected by KJSA/Bimal da.

Teachers:

  1. Jaykrishna Sardar

There are no other schools around of this type and they are glad to have Asha support.

School needs more teaching aids

Nearest public health center (PHC) is too far in Jamtola and is useless for emergency needs. They request health facility support.

Expanded classroom capacity: land is available for extension it has to be cleared and raised.



  1. Bablu Sardar
  2. Champa Pravnik

Champa is the new hire in this school and is very impressive as well. She has vision and has interesting ideas, is bold about speaking to me and giving her views. I am really glad they hired her as the new teacher. The kids especially need to see a strong female personality like her.

Many children are orphans/quasi-abandoned. In many cases, parents have wandered off to find work/better prospects and don't adequately support their children who are left behind with relatives. Relatives do not adequately provide for these abandoned children. Champa feels we should try to provide for these kids.

There are 45 1st children in school but they don't get a meal from us – they look on while the younger kids get lunch. This is hard on their feelings.

Parents: want to see some healthcare for the hamlet as Jamtola is too far away.

A very warm Bengal welcome here. They showered flower petals and serenaded me as I walked to the hamlet and had an elaborate garlanding ceremony – totally overkill and wholly unnecessary. I didn't expect to be treated as a special guest but the people went overboard. They have actually being garlanding me in all the schools and it is quite embarrassing and takes away from the work of observing the school in progress. Future site visitors should make a point of telling Bimal da to not do any special presentations – it takes away from the natural flow of the school day and turns the visit into a freak show. I don't want to be ungrateful for their welcome but we really have to talk to them in the future about this.

Didn't get to see lessons in progress because it was late – they were eating 'toast' which actually looks more like rusk. After lunch, the kids gave dance performances. Kids look happy and engaged.

Observations

  1. School buildings all need work, roofing/finishing but also more space. The over-crowding is touching; the kids are packed like sardines. At times the kids get irritable probably because there is not personal space.
  2. Our funded schools KN/PG look in better shape. The teachers are more experienced. HKM/KN especially seems motivated to training the other teachers in Montessori style and we should encourage him with dollars for this training activity.
  3. Teaching aids are spare and are improvised and not very durable. Teachers in KJSA and other projects I have seen in Maharashtra are too careful to preserve the toys to let the kids have free use of them and to learn from the toys; its not very useful if the toys are used more like museum pieces. This is understandable since they don't know when they will get more. We should make KJSA aware we intend to provide liberally for teaching aids and that they should have an attitude of letting the children have free use of them even if they wear out/get lost/pilfered.

Future project requests

Bimal da spoke over the day about project priorities and what is involved. In descending order of priority:

  1. Increasing days/month: they are running more than 20 days per month and the funds for meals are scarce for the additional days. I think we should fund this quickly. The schools are well run and providing value. If the kids are coming a few extra days we should consider it a good thing and encourage it with meals.
  2. Fund KS/J: the 2 schools are drawing students but do not have lunch and the teachers are working for free. We really ought to support these 2 schools. The money is available and the schools are functioning.
  3. Construction: the schools are lacking full roofs, permanent flooring, and adequate space. Funds are partly available and we really need to fulfill this need.
  4. Educational aids and training for teachers: there are insufficient aids and those available are flimsy. The junior teachers could use coaching from HKM and it would be nice to provide some amenities like food etc for these seminars to increase interest. This need looks relatively cheap to fulfill and has great educational impact. We should get KJSA to make a cost estimate and plan for regular restocking so aids are ample.
  5. Health care program: the need is strong. However we are primarily a funder of education. If they were to partner with a health care organization and we fund it that might be ok, but we don't have the expertise as an organization managing health care. This is perhaps a longer term project.
  6. Toilets: as requested by some teachers this would be nice to have.
  7. Annual sports day: does not look essential but may be a nice thing to do and may not be very expensive. It may increase morale with teachers and students if they have an event that brings all the schools together.

Conclusion

KJSA schools are running well and serving an acute need for pre-primary education. KJSA schools are short of space, teaching materials, funds for teachers and even the meals we provide are meager. Bimal da is a committed person and 2 senior teachers are able and driven. There are younger teachers who can be developed.

I think we should increase the operational funding to 22 days/mth and cover all 4 schools. The teaching aids/training project should be started as soon as possible (< 3 months). At least 2 school construction projects should be done within 6 months before the next rains.