General Questions:

 

Teachers’ training

1) When are the melas held – are they held on certain months of the year?  How are potential teachers identified?  Do you have a schedule for this year? 

 

There are no ‘Melas’ as such. There are Teacher’s Training’ Workshops (which are like ‘Melas’) We don’t identify / select specific teachers. All teachers, from all the 200 selected schools teaching Std. V attended the workshops last academic year (June 2001 to April 2002). This academic year (June 2002 to April 2003) teachers from Std. V and VI will attend workshops. These workshops are aimed at preparing these regular class-teachers to use the ‘Sangati material in their schools and also aimed at imparting the Sangati values and skills, so that these are applied while teaching regular subjects. This academic year i.e. June 2002 -April 2003, the first series of workshops will be conducted within a span of last week at June to middle at July 2002. I’ll let you know as we get the final dates. The second series will be in 2nd week of December within the span of 10 days.

2) Do you have an electronic version of the annual report? Pl send it to us. 

 

The soft copy the annual report is attached

 

3) Which kits will you be working on this year?  Is it Kits 3 and 4? Did you work on kits 1 and 2 last year?  The material you’ve sent us so far – is that from Kits 1 and 2?  As you can see, we’re simply trying to understand where we’re at, with the production of the curriculum and what it is that you’ve sent us.  More questions (sorry) – do Kits 1 and 2 apply to std VI, 3 and 4 to Std VII and 5 and 6 to Std VIII?  Please let us know – we’re in ignorance, as you can tell J

 

This year we are producing Kit 3 by May 2002 and Kit 4 by October/November 2002. But in schools Kit 1 & 2 (produced and used last year) will be used with the new batch of children studying Std. V and Kit 3 & 4 will be used with the children in Std. VI. (99% of these have done Kit 1 and 2 last academic year i.e. June 2001 - April 2002.)

 

Yes; the material sent so far is of Kit 1 and 2. The blue set is Kit 1 and green is Kit 2.

The correlation with Std. is as follows.

· Kit 1 : My self, My Body, Our Needs - Std. V
· Kit 2 : Our Earth & the web of life - Std. V
· Kit 3 : How societies Developed - Std. VI
· Kit 4 : The way we live - Std. VI
· Kit 5 : Understanding change Std. VII
· Kit 6 : Preparing for our future Std. VII

 

Budget Questions:

 

1) How many visualizers, proofreaders and editors are on your team? 

 

We have a panel of visualisers, proof-readers, editors. Last year we worked with about 8 visualisers. But the work amongst them was not equally divided. It depends on time schedules, style of drawing required and of course whether we can afford their rates. As far as proof readers and editors go - we have 1 or 2 each per language. (i.e. Hindi, Marathi, English, Gujrati, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Telegu) Usually we (i.e. the core-team members) try to help with English, Hindi, Marathi; but since the load of work is too much we need non-core team help too.

 

2) Master Copy of Protototype/Visuals

a) Please let us know what ‘data entry’ refers to.

b) Art materials for visual aids – we can guess what these are J but would like to know from you ?

c) How many artists do you have?

d) What is the role of the computer operator for graphics?

e) What portions of the production process are computerized? 

f) What is involved in ‘packaging and storage costs’, transport?

 

a) data entry means typing, correcting, basic page/layout making.
B) The art materials involve things like paper, colours, brushes, crayons, pens, adhesives, etc. and off-late we scan a basic drawing and which is coloured on the computer, so we need CDs too.
c) We have five people in-house.
d) The computer ‘Operator for graphics’ does the following. Page layout/ page making, scanning/ colouring drawings under the artist/ visualiser’s guidance, placing scanned materials like pix.s etc. in appropriate place, making print-files for positive making etc. The entire teachers manual and the text-part with the small image in b/w behind every visual aid is executed by this person.

d) following processes of production are computerized:
- data entry and corrections in English, Hindi, Marathi
- Page layout and final production of teachers manuals in Hindi and Marathi including children’s material in these languages,
- Text matter for all visual aids in both languages about 30% to 40% of visual aids.

f) Packaging costs include the plastic bags and jute bags which contain the Sangati Kit material (You have got 2 so far with ‘Sangati’ and ‘Avehi Abacus Project’ printed on them. Kit 1 bag is natural jute colour with brown strap and sides, Kit 2 bag is natural jute with green strap and sides.
g) Transport costs are for reaching the materials to schools.

 

It’s wonderful to see the section on Reference Material/Documentation – all of us here agree that it’s important to have that kind of activity to continue to produce relevant curriculum materials.

 

Teaching Aids

 

1)      Do you use 1 teacher’s kit per class?

 

Yes, each class gets one Kit.

2) What are positive making charges?

 

‘Positives’ are like acetate sheets with ‘colour separation’ information. Once these are made they can be preserved for a very long time in case one needs more copies printed. This is an essential requirement for printing large number of copies.

 

 

Children’s kits

 

1)      For the children’s kits, you have an estimate of 16000 children.  Is that the number of children you’ll reach this year?

 

Correction : There are not children’s kits There is a lot of ‘material for children’ which is primarily files, information sheets/booklets and worksheets/ activity sheets all in 8 languages - (the generic term may be ‘worksheets’).These are given to each child.
This year we will work simultaneously with Std. V and VI therefore the number of children is 16,000.

2)      If there’s a need to produce 16000 worksheets/files, the total cost comes to 16,000 x 8 = 128,000 Rs. You mention an amount of Rs. 250,000.  Pl let us know why.

 

You have multiplied the number of children by 8. What is 8 supposed to be in your understanding? (I think you have taken 8 as languages its produced in). There seems to be some confusion. Let me try to explain. Kit 1 has about 75 worksheets and kit 2 has 35 worksheets per child, therefore each of these sheets for children has to be made into the appropriate number of copies.. The number of students for each language is different. So the following number of pages are printed language wise. (for Kit 1: Marathi 176000, Hindi 63360, English 26880, Gujrati 9010, Kannada 13200, Urdu 73000, Tamil 38070, Telegu 12780 and for kit 2: Marathi 85250, Hindi 35640, English 12180, Gujrati 5610, Urdu 38000, Tamil 18400, Telegu 7920 and Kannada 10600).

 

3)      Is this expense (Rs. 250,000) for Kits 3 and 4 only? Or are you producing files/worksheets for Kits 1 and 2 also?  And the worksheets/files you produced last year – which kits were they for?

 

This year the Rs. 2,50,000/- we’ve asked under the heading ‘children’s material’ is for making copies for children for the new Std. V (kit 1 &2) and Std. VI. (kit 3 & 4). Last year what was produced/ duplicated was distributed to std. V to children in all schools - The mater copies and positives of children’s’ material for std. V are with us. But the files will be given to only Std. V children as they will do ‘Sangati’ for the first time. The children from Std. VI will have their own files (with their material) given to them last year i.e. in the academic year of June 2001 to April