Visit to Shastri School for Deaf and Dumb
children
US Chapter: Asha Seattle
Compiled by Gayathri and Manohar,
Asha Bangalore volunteers, who visited the school on Aug. 25,
2000.
All our conversations with the people we met were in Kannada and
we have tried our best to translate it in English.
We had called the school about a week prior to our visit and
were informed that we could drop in any time. So, we called them
on Thursday afternoon and told them of our plans to visit the following
day. On Friday, we met Mr. Basavaraju near the ISKCON temple who
then guided us to the school. We reached there around 10.30am and the
classes had already commenced.
On arrival, we were introduced to Mrs S. G. Vijayakumari, headmistress
of the school and we spent a considerable period of time getting to
know them, the school and its functioning.
The school was started by parents whose
children were deaf and were finding it difficult to enroll and
cope up with the teaching in 'normal' schools. So, the parents
came together and formed the Karnataka Welfare Association which runs
the Shastry school. Mr. Basavaraju is one such parent and also serves
as the secretary of the Association. Mrs Vijayakumari joined the school
six years back having worked in a few other places before that. A
desire to do serve such needy children is what prompted her to the
place, she told. She is a graduate and has completed her D.Ed (Diploma
in Deaf Education). Basavaraju along with Vijakumari is responsible
with the day-to-day functioning of the school. There's one more person
Mr. Chandrashekar (whom we could not meet) who takes care of accounting
and other financial matters.
The School:
The school is in the midst of a residential area. It is actually a
house (ground + 1) whose living rooms, kitchen etc are used as
classrooms. The living room is partioned into two to house two classes.
Each floor accommodates about 4 classrooms. Space is really tight and
the 'kitchen' in which Class I classes are held has students sitting on
the concrete shelves hugging the walls!
Admission procedure:
Admission is open to all children though all the children in the school
are deaf. Mrs Vijayakumari told us that they do auditory tests on
incoming children to measure the level of deafness. Most of the time
they rely on auditory tests done by external agencies.
Teaching aids:
From what we could learn, they have three types of devices:
- Biopharma Speech Trainer: Its a device which helps to evaluate a
child's hearing capacities. There are two sets of headphones, one for
the evalauator and one for the child, and it needs a trained person to
operate it. We were told that training in using the device is given in
the D.Ed. course. They have 4 nos. but 2 were inoperative. We were told
that each child is trained for 45 mins each week using the Speech
Trainer.
- Group Hearing Aid: This is a cluster of 8-10 headphones, each fixed
at regular intervals along a U-shaped table (similar to what one would
see in a meeting room with conferencing facilities). There's a
microphone and a set of headphones for the teacher. They have two of
these (two classrooms). None of them were in use and we were told that
they needed repair. (Each GH Aid costs approx Rs 22,000)
- Individual hearing aids: These are regular hearing aids (fit in
pocket) meant for individual use. Some of the children were wearing it,
but most were not. We were told that the battery had gone out, some
needed repairs (apparently the place where they send it to for repairs
charges a lot). Mrs Vijayakumari told us that except for 30 all of them
had hearing aids.
Most of the children have profound hearing loss (quantitatively it
means more than 75% of their hearing capacities is lost; info provided
by Vijayakumari). They have a different type of hearing aid which
amplifies sound to a very high level as Gayathri found when she tested
one out!
Instruction:
The medium of instruction is Kannada and the school follows the State
prescribed syllabus/text books. Instruction is primarily done through
- visual - writing on blackboard
- children practicing hand coordination by writing in notebooks
- oral - using the speech trainer to develop auditory skills.
They do not use sign language for instructional purposes; the reason
they cited was that they want the children to pick up/develop their
auditory capacities and not make the children feel different from that
of other schools.
A report card is maintained for each student which lists the marks
scored in each test. There
are 10 tests in an academic year (May - April). The subjects taught are
1. "paDApatti" - verbal way of building vocabulary/pronounciation
2. Kannada
3. Maths
4. Science
5. Social Studies
6. Drawing
7. Speech Therapy - improving speaking abilities
8. Auditory Training - to improve hearing capacities
9. Activity lessons
1,7,8 exam procedures/scoring/evaluation procedures are all internal to
the school i.e there are no state prescribed metrics. 7th AND 8th STD
EXAMS ARE according to the Prescribed state syllabus,and the children
go to other schools to take these exams. Up till now they have had 100%
results.the highest last year being 80%. The only subjects tested at
the state level are maths,science,kannada and social studies.
Children/teachers:
Most of the children hail from low income families. (The monthly income
of their parents were indicated on the copy of project proposal which
Basavaraju said has been sent to Asha)
All wore uniforms, except the preschool children. Some of them could
communicate well and and were able to tell their names, what they were
studying, what they had for breakfast (the school provides breakfast
and lunch) etc. It was really heartening to see and get to know that
despite their shortcomings, they did what any normal child could do.
There was this orphan, Priya about 5 years of age, who stays with Mrs
Vijayakumari. Through actions she told us what she had for
breakfast.
22 orphans stay with Mrs. Vijayakumari while the remaining 18 stay in
the school. Other children go home after the daily classes.
As far as their auditory capacities go, some could hear well and could
speak in sentences while some could speak haltingly a few words. We
were told that they had started schooling late and at an older age and
it was difficult to develop their faculties quickly.
There are 13 teachers but on the day we went only 5 were present
(Jayamma - preschool, Chandra Reddy - VIII Std, P. V. Nagaraj - VII
Std, Shashikala Kerur - iv std, Saraswati Kulkarni - III std). About
the others, some had reported sick were what we were told. All of them
have a D.Ed qualification.
Teachers are paid according to their work experience and often leave
for better opportunities. If the school cannot find teachers with D.Ed
certificate, then they go for someone with TCH (teacher's training
certificate) degree. There is one instance wherein the school paid for
one teacher to get the D.Ed training with the rider that the teacher
stays with the school atleast 5 years after completion of the course.
Financials/Assets/Liabilities:
There about 6 'volunteers' who have ID cards, go door-to-door and
collect funds. They are paid about Rs 700 per month. Daily collection
is deposited with Mr. Chandrashekar who does the book-keeping.
They collect a minimum of 100 per day But of course their collections
are very irregular and The school does not have a fixed montly income.
The school does not get any funding from the government. For most part,
they are dependent on donations from individuals. Apparently, the govt
has a scheme by which each student can get Rs 500 provided s/he is
certified (annually) to be deaf but both Vijayakumari and Basavaraju
pointed out that to get the certificate, they have to incur atleast Rs
250 towards bribes, conveyance etc, so it does not make economic sense
to pursue that funding. It is also a long drawn Procedure. The parents
of some of the children Contribute in times of emergency but since most
of these children come from lower middle class households the
contribution of the parents is very minimum. Only 18 parents make any
monetary contributions towards working of the school.
Mr. Basavaraju does not get paid, but other staff memebers do. Mr.
Chandrashekar gets paid for the transportation expenses he incurs.
They have a FCNR # and in the past they have got donations of $ 250 or
so, which they have put in fixed deposits. Now, they have a fixed
deposit of Rs 2 lakhs.
They presently own a piece of land near Tumkur Road (40 ft x 60 ft)
which would probably fetch about Rs 2 lakhs. They had originally
planned to use it to build a school but the plan met opposition with
the parents who found the place to be very remote and distant from the
place of residence. The children at present use public tranport(buses)
to get to school. Some children travel by rickshaws that have been
arranged by the School.the parents pay a small sum towards transport by
rickshaw.
Their Needs:
We asked Basavaraju and Vijakumari what they felt were their pressing
needs. Money to buy land for the school. They have three sites in mind,
around their current location, with price range of 11 to 15 lakhs. They
have a rough estimate about how much it would cost to purchase property
and construct a new building but since they have not consulted a civil
engineer or an archtect the estmate may be slightly off.
Their current place needs to be vacated in about 3 months and next year
they will need more space when they start std IX.
Our Comments:
The people we met seemed genuine and really interested in getting deaf
children educated. There are no other schools which provide the same in
nearby areas of North-West Bangalore for such children.
They told us that they do interact with other similar institutions
(there are atleast 4 in B'lore) on teaching methods for deaf children
but were unable to provide details. Perhaps they could try some other
teaching methods like using sign language (Let me state that none of us
i.e. myself/gayathri have a background in education of deaf/dumb
children)
Their infrastructure with regards to auditory aids seem shaky and needs
strengthening.
Their fund-raising base is primarily through individual donations.
Buying land through such fund-raising will take time. While their
intentions are good, they were not clear in their contingency plans in
case land could not be bought for construction.
Notes:
1. D.Ed : Diploma in Deaf education. Its a one year course which can be
done after PUC (Std XII) or graduation.
2. While we were visiting the school, another person, Murali dropped in
to donate 3 hearing aids to the school. He told us that his parents
started a trust which does lot of philanthropic services and they
regularly donate hearing aids to the school. He had come with names of
three orphans to whom the hearing aids were meant for.