Project Name:

Date:

Project Contact Information

Asha Contact

Name

Contact

Hriday Kant Dewan

Address

Vidya Bhawan Society,

Vidya Bhawan Education Centre,

Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta Marg,

Dewali, Udaipur – 313 001 (Raj.)

Phone(s)

(0294) 450911/451323/451497

Fax

(0294) 451323

E-mail

vbsudr@yahoo.com

 

Part I: Information about your group/organization

Please feel free to attach any additional sheets and/or information such as brochures, press reports etc.

1. Name of the group/organization requesting funds.

Vidya Bhawan Society for Vidya Bhawan Education Centre.

2. When was the group established?

Vidya Bhawan Society : 1931

Vidya Bhawan Education Centre : 1994

3. Briefly describe the motivation for starting this group.

Providing better education for lower middle class and rural children, improving the quality of education in all schools, supporting a open and democratic society.

4. Briefly describe the aims of your group.

Objectives :

The basic purpose of setting up Vidya Bhawan was to prepare citizens who would be able to take over well-being of the country and work towards development of their community with responsibility. Vidya Bhawan recognized meaningful education as a basic step towards acquiring national capability to deal with issues that are confronting us as a nation. The main objectives of Vidya Bhawan are:

  1. To promote sound education which implies the full and harmonious development of the individual according to his or her aptitude with a sense of social responsibility;

  2. to develop a broad and open-minded outlook on life and a healthy sense of citizenship;

  3. to disseminate sound ideas on education among parents, teachers, guardians and people in general;

  4. to conduct and promote educational experiments and research; and

  5. to promote vocational and professional education based on employment needs of the society at large.

The Society membership is open to any one who is interested in development and helping the poor, achieve clarity and equity. It focusses on plurality of views, decentralization and autonomy, environmental and social contribution and recognizes that education needs to be based on social context (the constitution of the Society is appended).

The Education Centre has begun to define its identity since it started six year ago. The Centre provides opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas and sharing of experiences among Vidya Bhawan Institutions. In co-operation with Lok Jumbish and Sandhan it has organised a seminar on Environmental Studies at Elementary School level, with DPEP it organised a workshop on Alternative Schooling, arranged programmes with Shiksha Ekai of Seva Mandir for neo-literate and para-workers as well as for teachers of Vidya Bhawan institutions. It has held meetings with teachers of schools around Jhamarkotra on pedagogy and process. Vidya Bhawan Society is working as a nodel resource with for upper primary science programme for Lok Jumbish programme in Rajasthan. New textbooks and activity based teaching learning pedagogy has been evolved based on HSTP science programme.

The Craft and Professional Centre has launched a programme in Jhamarkotra School to equip students with ability to participate in the economy. It organised an introductory workshop for teachers, children and parents and has now started a programme after school hours for those children interested in learning a trade. This is in addition to the craft activity which is for all students.

This proposal is not for improving assess of education but for improving the quality of education. Increasingly, it is become clear that schools and centres for providing learning are not able to attract and retain children because the quality of transaction is very poor. Our focus of work under this proposal is to help reverse this and improve the quality of transaction in schools, in the villages, w w w slums as well as rural learning centres in the region around us.

5. Does your group have any religious or political affiliation? If yes, please describe the type of affiliation and the reason for it.

NO

6. What non education-related community development activities is your group involved in?

Vidya Bhawan Polytechnic:

Vidya Bhawan Polytechnic has a Community Wing which interacts with villagers and shares simple useful technologies with them. It carried out surveys of villages for construction of roads, paving of lanes, terracing of fields, contour bunding, water supply and drainage schemes, helps plan community centres and canal construction etc. It helped Panchayats and Panchayat Samitis by giving them consultancy and advice.

The attempt to bring technological ideas that would be useful to the villages continues to be the goal of the institution.

Krishi Vigyan Kendra :

Krishi Vigyan Kendra started as the lab-to-land programme sponsored by ICAR. The objectives of this was to popularise the results of tested agricultural technology to small and marginal farmers. The Vidya Bhawan KVK now has a full-fledged dairy, poultry, goat rearing, floriculture and horticulture programme. It has a 20 acre farm-cum-orchard. It has expertise in working with women to form small groups for economic activities. It has taken up many collaborative projects and is co-ordinating meetings between Government institutions/officials, Agricultural University and NGOs of Udaipur to pursue research driven by the needs of farmers etc. It has demonstration farms and a system of providing on site demonstration as well as technical and consultancy support to other organisations and institutions.

Local Self Government and Responsible Citizenship:

The school for citizenship and training in Local Self Government is the newest addition to Vidya Bhawan. It aims to reinforce confidence in democratic processes at the grassroot level; by providing the requisite skills and sensitisation, for good governance and participatory development, of the elected functionaries. This institute was set up with support from the European Union. Apart from orienting and regularly interacting with elected functionaries. The Institute documents issues of Human Rights, Gender Equality, and problems in rural areas and conducts research on understanding its dimensions. In these activities works hand in hand with prominent local NGOs like Seva Mandir. It has prepared a manual for training that is being considered extremely useful by all. At present the project is supported by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust will support this project.

7. Does your organization have FCRA clearance from the Indian government? This is required for you to receive foreign funds.

Yes we have FCRA Number : 125690033 dated 7th June, 1989 under Foreign Contribution (Regulation ) Act, 1976.

Part II: Details about your educational project/s

8. List the school/s run by your group, and their locations. If you are requesting funds for only a few of several schools, please specify which one/s.

  1. Vidya Bhawan Sr. Secondary School :- It is situated in the vicinity of Udiapur.
  2. Vidya Bhawan Basic School :- It is situated in the village Ramgiri 5 kms. away from the Udaipur City.

  3. Vidya Bhawan Jhamarkotra School :- Jhamarkotra school, about 20 miles from Udaipur, is situated in the area of phosphate mines and draws students from mine worker families as also nearby villages.

  4. Two centers in the Jhamarkotra Mines areas. Two centers in the Chikalwas and Thoor Villages.

Funds requested are only partially for the schools. They are mostly for resource support and quality improvement efforts in these and the schools.

9. Location of school/s Ö Urban Ö Rural Ö Other

All these are in different kind of locations.

10. Specify the type of education provided (e.g. basic literacy, vocational training etc.).

The education provided consist of regular school programmes as well as teacher training programmes in our institutions. We are also engaged in running a few (at present 4) and likely to increase gradually centers for literacy and vocational training for women and girls. These centres also attract few boys but they are primarily for helping girls to learn to read and write along with the some vocational training.

11. Please tell us about your teaching techniques (conventional vs. alternative).

The teaching techniques used in our schools are a mixture of conventional and alternative. The purpose is to identify the possibilities that can make conventional schools more towards, more child friendly programmes and ensure that such processes are initiated.

12. What is the literacy rate in your local community?

Literacy figures in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts are around 34% on the average and 19% for women. For schedule caste the average figures is 8% and for schedule tribe it is 13%.

13. Describe the socio-economic background of the children and their parents (e.g. education, occupational). If any of your students are employed, please tell us about that as well.

The socio-economic background of students in our schools is mixed. Many of the children come from lower middle class families and a few come from middle class families also. There are almost no children from the elite section of the community. Roughly one third of children come from poor and socially background communities from all over Rajasthan on scholarship providing by Rajasthan Government. We are also having 50 children from a nearby orphanage enrolled at one of our schools. In the centres run by us the girls and women who participated come from rural poor background and most of them do not any background of reading and writing or exposure to school.

In general even among children coming to our schools there are some children both of whose parents are not literate and the mothers of a large number of children cannot read and write at all.

Most of the women who are coming to the centre are occupied in domestic work as also in work on their fields.

14. What is the admission criteria for the students to join your school? How many children attend your school currently? What is your boy:girl ratio? What is your teacher:student ratio?

All students are free to join our schools, over 2000 children are attending the three schools. Boys and girls ratio in the school is 20 girls for 80 boys while in the centres it is much more girls than boys. We have on the average one teacher per 30 children.

15. In addition to education, does your group provide any other services to the children in your schools (e.g. food, health care, clothing, etc.)?

Largely no but we do help children from the orphanage obtain clothes and books with local help. The children on scholarship from the Rajasthan Government have all their expenses covered.

16. How do you perceive that education will improve the lives of the children in your village?

The major help that it will provide children is opening their access to sources of information and for creating more options. It would make them more confident and give them the ability to understand the system that they are interacting with them.

17. Does your school have:

Its own building(s): Ö Yes No Number

Number and type of classrooms (e.g. Pukka):

Yes No Yes No Yes No

Toilets Ö Playground Ö Toys

Chairs & Tables Ö Blackboard Ö Library Ö

Drinking water Ö Electricity Ö Computers Ö

Laboratory Ö Teaching aids (e.g. books/slates) Ö

18. What is the age group of the children currently enrolled in your school(s)?

From 6 years to 18 years.

19. How many staff are employed at your schools?

Teachers 70 Minimum Qualifications Senior Secondary

Other staff

20. Average distance the children travel to attend your school

It varies from school to school. It is less for centers and more for schools. The range being so large average is meaning less.

21. Please answer this if your school has existed for atleast 5 years. How many children have gone through your program in the past five years and what are they doing currently? Please tell us about their future education possibilities. How would you visualize their future employment possibilities?

Our schools are an existence for a very long time and many children from various backgrounds have gone through them. They are now engaged in all kinds of activities. Many of them have gone for higher studies and are employed in every possible field.

22. Do you help your students with their future education efforts after they have passed out of your school? If so please describe your efforts.

23. Are there any other schools (Kindergarten/Balwadi, Elementary school, High school) in the area? If so, please list the schools and the range of classes each of them offers.

There are many schools around all the three schools. These however vary in density nature and agencies which run them. There are very few schools in the Jhamarkotra region. Around the centers in Jhamarktora there are no schools.

24. Is your program different from that provided at these schools? Please explain.

The programmes offered in our schools are different because they provide more space for children engaged in learning. They also give the child more opportunity to articulate and express her own feelings apart from giving the teachers flexibility and freedom. There is a process of reflection and discussions among the teachers and the nature of materials used are also different to the extent possible within the constraint of the curriculum.

25. Why are the children in your school/s not attending government/other schools in the local area?

It is because these schools are considered to be better. Except that the girls are sent to the government schools specifically meant for girls and the percentage of girls in our schools, being co-education is therefore low even though the number of lady teachers is higher than male teachers.

26. Do you try to involve the parents of the children in the running of the school (e.g. in setting the syllabus etc.)? Please specify.

Parents are involved in discussions about the schools and its functioning and regular meetings are held with them. There is, however, no possibility of them being involved in setting syllabus. The syllabus is governed by the norms of the Government. We have, however and do use the flexibility within the syllabus and take the opinion of parents in this matter.

27. What are your expansion plans for the future (e.g. adding more classes or schools)? How do you see your school impacting the village five years from now?

We intent to extend our programme of intervening in quality improvement in more schools. Our schools are already Secondary or Sr. Secondary schools so we donot intend to extend them. We also feel that rather than the opening new schools it is more important to improve the quality and consolidate the existing schools and other structures. In 5 years we expect a closer relationship between the school and the village community and the possibility of the school helping the village people become capable of reading and writing as well as learning to enjoy to read. We also hope that the relationship between school and community will lead to concern about immunizations, sanitation, environment and water conservation.

28. Any additional details you would like to provide to us.

Vidya Bhawan is an organization which was set up in 1931 to provide good quality education in the period of growth it got a lot of support from public and thereby acquired flexibility of functioning and decision making. Since independence we have been entirely dependent open government support and the quantum of needed support has now become very large. There is no scope for exploration and consolidation within the provision of the support. It is this which is throttling the quality of institutions and the large input of support is not being used adequately. The funds are so tight that we are not able to use them for facilitating quality monitoring and improvement.

29. Do you have any suggestions for us?

I am not sure whether I can actually make suggestions that is relevant to your group, I think there is a need now to help provide core support to organisations concerned about quality issues and which can help other institutions develop, better quality programmes. There is support available for running institutions with bare minimum cost but there is no support available for providing inputs or think of the requirements for helping children coming from deprived background learn. I feel it is necessary to offset the disadvantage arising from lack of support for learning to read and write and therefore budget slightly higher amount for such children. But all our systems seem to feel that the rural schools or rural centres can only be second best to the schools for the rich. We need to review this and support efforts that attempt to make possible different kinds of schools.

30. If possible, please provide us with the contact information of two individuals from your community who can describe the impact of your program.

1. Name

Shri Hemraj Bhati

2. Name

Sh. M.S.Mehta

Address

Seva Mandir, Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta Marg,

Address

Saheli Marg,

UDAIPUR – 313 001 (Raj.)

Udaipur 313 001

Phone

(0294) 451041 Fax. (0294) 450947

Phone

31. Asha for Education requires reports from its projects every six months to continue funding. Please provide the contact information for the person from your group who will be responsible for these reports.

Name

Hridya Kant Dewan

Address

Vidya Bhawan Society, Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta Marg,

Dewali, UDAIPUR – 313 001 (Raj.)

Phone

(0294) 450911, 451323, 451497

Fax : (0924) 451323.

Part III: Financial Details

Please feel free to attach any information such as annual reports, budgets etc.7

32. What sources fund your group’s activities at present? List the sources and the current and future funding from each of them. If these funds are meant for a specific part of your group’s activities, please describe those restrictions.

Note :- The funding is from various sources and is for specific items related to the work expected by the funder. The largest fund come from the government which supports the functioning of the school as conventional institutions. It also supports the functions of the teacher training institutions in a conventional manner. Some other institutions are also supported by the Rajasthan Government, ICAR funds for KVK.

The main sources of funding for us has been the State Government in the form of grant-in-aid. In the attached list we have given names of other sources of funding but these are not proportionately comparable to the grant-in-aid from the State Government. It is only for the last five years that there has been an increase in the funds that are available to the Society from sources other than State Government. The importance of these funds cannot be equated with the amount they reflect. These additional funds have made it possible for us to think about developing programmes that are in conjunction with our basic understanding and motivate and attract children in this process of building an alternative.

List of major current funding sources:

  1. Deptt. of Primary Sec Education Rajasthan Govt.

  2. Deptt. of College Education Rajasthan Govt.

  3. Deptt. of Technical Education Rajasthan Govt.

  4. Deptt. of Social Welfare, Rajasthan Govt.

  5. ICAR, Delhi

  6. UGC

  7. RSMML

  8. Income of the Service units of the Society, like dairy, farm, store, rents of buildings etc.

  9. Ford foundation

  10. NORAD

  11. Inter-Corporation

  12. MHRD

  13. Sir Ratan Tata Trust

  14. Sir Dorab Ji Tata Trust

  15. UNDP

  16. GTZ Foundation

  17. Apart from this we had support from a lot of individuals and big & small trusts who have given support for development of infrastructure and or for running expenditure of the institutions. The list of these donors is very large and we are re-activating this process.

33. Please provide us with details of your projected budget for the next 3 years:

34. Salary expenditure details:

Number

Salary Range

Teachers

Rs. 1500/- - 15000/- per month

Paid Staff

Rs. 1200/- – 10,000/- per month

Volunteer Staff

35. Please provide details of the fixed costs of your school/s for the next three years.

36. How many of your students pay school fees? Please provide details.

1800 - Pay fees

250 - Freeships

300 - Scholarship

37. What amount are you requesting from Asha, and for what specific purpose?

Items

Amount

One time / Annual

Salary

5.0 lakh

Annual

Establishment

1.20 lakh

""

Travel and Transport

0.80 lakh

""

Communications, Computer, Consumables, maintenance

1.0 lakh

""

Educational materials - books, Periodicals, Stationary, Printing, Xerox.

1.0 lakh

""

Workshops, Seminars, Meetings

1.0 lakh

""

*Equipment

(Photocopier, materials for new centers including deries, almirah, chair, table etc.

3.0 lakh

One time