PROPOSAL FOR NEEL BAUGH TRUST SCHOOL, MADANAPALLI

The Neel Baugh Trust was started in 1982 with a rural school in Andhra Pradesh outside Madanapalli. The founders of the school are Usha and Narasimhan. Usha is a trained teacher in secondary school teaching and Narasimhan is an aeronautical engineer who left his career to help his wife Usha to set up and run the school. The school has three teachers presently and 19 children from second grade to 10^th grade.  All children come from neighboring villages and their parents usually work as seasonal workers in agriculture. None of the families have had education beyond two or three years in schools. All the families could be classified as living below poverty level, unable to send their children to schools at Madanapalli. This is true for the other two schools also. None of the children in all the three schools will normally go to school given the financial constraints of the families.

  This school system is very different from a normal school in rural India. In a normal school, the children are made to learn by rote method, no individual attention is possible (since the class could have in excess of 50 children) resulting in a drop out rate of perhaps 80 per cent. The children are not taught to think for themselves nor are they taught skills and crafts. Their language, science and math competency is usually very low and the teachers have no interest in seeing to the needs of the children.

  In Sumavanam, the drop out rate is almost zero. The children ( around 25 in number) are taught at their own pace. They learn both their mother tongue and English, the elder students help in teaching the younger ones, an atmosphere of trust and friendship makes the children blossom into useful and self-confident members of the community. Science experiments, environmental concerns, water resource management and related, relevant rural skills make the school unique. The most important aspect of the school is that all students feel they are part of a family and normally stay in school in the evenings as long as possible. They are also taken to places like Madras and Bangalore once a year and to many museums and places of learning there.   

  Vikasana school was started in 1977. It is situated outside Bangalore and has presently three teachers and thirty children from first to tenth grade. Ananda Vidya Kendram (AVK) school is situated in rural Andhra Pradesh close to the city of Chittoor and has two teachers with thirty children in first to fifth grade. AVK school was started in 1995. All the three schools are run by a nonprofit organization, Neel Baugh Trust with prominent citizens from Bangalore and Madras who are on the Board of the Foundation. Usha and Narasimhan have been assisting the teachers at AVK in teaching methods for the past two years. All three schools go through yearly funding deficits; currently ASHA of USA supports Neel Baugh Trust at a yearly level of US $ 3000 only.

  The current proposal is for a period of five years starting year 2000. The fiscal year in India is from April 1 to March 31 of the following year. ASHA has so far funded US $ 900 this year and is likely to send another $ 2100 by year end. The entire amount is towards partial salary of the Sumavanam teachers and for consumable items. The capital expenditure at Sumavanam for the first year is towards setting up a drip irrigation system to tend to all the plants and trees in the school grounds. A telephone connection will also be provided so that the teachers need no go back to the city to make a call (a distance of 6 miles travel, and travel in a bus). An UPS for the computer is essential since the power outages are very common especially the summer months. The funding may be sent in two installments of around US $6000 in the months of June and  November, 2000. A report on the progress of the project will be sent twice a year (in the months of September and March) and an audited statement of accounts will be available in April of each year.

This report is prepared by T.M. Srinivasan, Ph.D., 3129 South Orm Drive, Tempe, AZ 85282. Tel: (480)858-9238.