Initiative taken by YFE, Gurgaon under the ‘youth - club nachiketa’ campaign.'Education for all' – mission unaccomplished (even after 60 years of independence)
‘Only through education the whole world can be changed’ – Nelson Mandela
‘Education doesn’t only enlighten the mind but it also librates the spirit’ – Smt. Indira Gandhi
‘The only mission is education - for our country which needs to be focused first’ – Nandan Nilekani, Former CEO, Infosys
"In our time no well educated literate population that is poor, there is no illiterate population that is other than poor"- John Kenneth Gailbraith
Primary education is vital for children development -
It has become a fundamental right; it is thus the responsibility of the state to make it available to every child in the country. The emphasis must be on instilling creativity, innovation and independent thinking which would help in the development of the overall child personality. Psychologists also agree that the primary school environment and education impact children’s personalities to a great extent.
What’s our aim: good, quality education for all.
Primary education is the most prominent and most challenging area, which should be focused today by all policy makers and activists. Same as admitted by Krishna Kumar, director of NCERT and Nandan Nilekani former CEO of Infosys in his forthcoming book on present India challenges named ‘Imagining India’.
To take a deep insight into our primary education situation following links are useful
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Editorial/COMMENT_Focus_On_Schools/articleshow/3733672.cms
http://youthforequality.com/education/overview%20of%20indian%20primary%20education.doc
http://youthforequality.com/education/top-without-base.aspx
All these links summarize that “need of hour is to recognize that starting a good primary school is as complex as setting up a new IIT”
What the plan actually –
The number of migrant population is increasingly growing in the metros. Along with this, problems associated with migration are also escalating. The most notable problem is the education of the children of these people.
Their children do not get admissions to govt. schools due to bureaucratic problems arising from their migration such as not having age certificates, not having transfer certificate (TC) or not having previous class mark sheets/report cards. They fail to provide evidence that children were going to school for some period and hence desire to to continue their studies in the relocated territory. We believe these problems though significant can be overcome by working closely with the Govt. departments involved and with focused attention of individuals and organizations. The simplistic idea here is to cast the net wider for bringing education to children. And these children are at the very periphery of the existing boundaries, and hence can be helped to get benefit of Govt. funded education with relatively less efforts.
Cyber city Gurgaon is also facing this problem and an estimated 1.5 lakh migrant children are still not enrolled in any school of the city. Most of them are occupied in different industries of the city and increasing ‘child labour’ problem. To cater their needs YFE Education cell has taken initiative of opening a ‘primary school’ with the support of people ‘Mullahera’ village. YFE volunteers started school on 5th January 2009. ‘Sarpanch’ of ‘Mullahera’ has given panchayt land to YFE for this noble cause and assured his full support.
We are trying to address the shortcomings in of the current system in two ways
-> Based on their 'age' we’ll prepare them for open school exams by giving some elementary education.
-> We'll try and adopt SSA schools (Sarv Sikhsa Abhiyaan) under some NGO’s supervision and after a few months work prepare them for admission in Govt. schools.
Survey to seek target children –
We had conducted a survey (based on guidelines from Aaasra Charitable Trust, New Delhi) to identify children in nearby slums and now they are coming for their regular classes. Besides our own volunteering efforts, retd. school teachers are also providing their services to the school.
Overall, we are concentrating on the following issues in our ‘special school’ named ‘Prayatna’
1) Most of the children are drop outs from govt. schools so our main emphasis will be re-admission of these children in the neighborhood schools.
2) To retain children in school is our prime concern. Attendance should not drop significantly at any point of time. To attain this goal yfe volunteers visiting to their home place or slums fortnightly.
3) Check the progress of each child weekly and emphasize on all possible ways to provide good and quality education
In summary our main objective, is
"good, quality education for someone's omitted by govt., neglected by schools - establish a bridge between them - make them like they can join mainstream within few months - convince schools to adopt them and aware their guardians for their education related rights"
to act as a bridge to extend the reach of existing Govt. funded schooling provisions.We focus our immediate attention on relocated migrant families .We would assist them through preparatory education so as to enable them to be included in the Govt. schools at the earliest where they can benefit from the sustained education efforts of the State –funded education program.
We would also assist training primary teachers who desire to assist our efforts.
ACT India has a model in this regard and we’ll adopt that model.
‘Service to mankind is service to god’ inspired by these words ‘Prayatna’ is been functioning at 'Nai Harijan chaupaal', near Gurudwara, Mullahera village, Gurgaon distt.
For more details please contact YFE Education cell at any time.
Contact Person: Praneet - +91 99900 94245, Sonali - +91 98916 98862,
Mohit - +91 99113 77782
Or you may send a mail to praneet.sushil@gmail.com
"Together we can, Together we will"
