MinutesOct-21-2007

Jayanth, Sandipan, Cohan, Bala, Pankaj, Sapan, Urmila, Anand, Anitha, Anil, Nandini, Madhurima

Agenda

I. Sevalaya Proposal

II. Kabir Project in Schools

I. Sevalaya Proposal (Anand and Anitha)

    * Located in Kasavu Village, Thiruninravur, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu
    * 19 years old school, Rural
    * For orphans and economically disadvantages students
    * Housing, education, meals, uniforms, textbooks, notebooks etc. are provided for free.
    * Current strength~1000 students
    * Govt. recognized curriculum
    * Other donors include ILP, TCS, Vibha
    * Asha Berkeley is currently stewarding the project, and Asha Silicon Valley is currently funding the project.
    * In the past, Sevalaya has been funded by Asha Chicago, UIUC.
    * Proposal is for teachers' salary (39 teachers total)
    * Total Budget: ~$31000 (recurring)
    * Site visit done in May by Jayakanth (Asha, SV)
    * Next site visit will be done in Dec 2007
    * FCRA YES
    * This is the only school being run by Sevalaya
    * Supporting 26 students or higher education

Questions (Answers provided by project partner)

1. What is the boy-girl ratio in the school? Girls are more. We have around 60:40 ratio.

2. What is the teacher retention? How long do most teachers stay? We noticed a lot of teachers who have been with Sevalaya for one month. Are these new appointments? How many new teachers do you appoint every year and how many leave Sevalaya?

Sevalaya is a growing organization. For example our school strength was 630, 2 years ago; it became 850 last year and it is 1000 this year. Hence we have to double the number of teachers also in the last two years. Hence you will see many teachers who are new in the organization. Many joined at the beginning of this academic year - only those you are seeing as one month old. Our headmaster has completed 10 years service this year. He was given an award for this in our annual day. Please see the news report attached. There is one teacher who has completed 11 years service. There are many who are 5+ years. The average teacher stays is around 3 years, as of now. This is because they get government jobs after that and the salary is atleast 5 times more. We want to bridge this gap by giving better salaries, so that we are able to retain good teachers.

3. We were wondering if you could give a general break up for your finances.

We spend around 6 lakhs every month. The details for last six months is attached.

4. The lower end salary range for the staff was Rs. 500. Are these part time staff?

This staff is a helper in Balwadi class. It is full time, but the person has no qualification. She stays in the campus and gets free accommodation and food.

5. What is the dropout rate for students in Sevalaya? There were more students in the 12th than in the 10th in the board results. Why is there this difference?

The drop out rate is 2%, which very low compared to any other school. The reason you see the numbers are more in 11th and 12th is because we have 3 sections in 11th and 12th and only 2 upto 10th. This is to enable poor students from other schools to join Sevalaya in the 11th Std - may schools don't have 11th and 12th class - they are called high schools and we are called 'higher secondary school'.

II. Kabir Project in Schools (Bala)

    * Audio CD and DVD were played
    * Jatin might visit the school next month
    * Can it be taken on larger scale for awareness?
    * What is the purpose of the project?
    * How to evaluate this project? Attendance, Competition at the end of semester were suggested.
    * Can we train the people in the area to teach Kabir songs?