http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ashasv-vol/surveys?id=2913901 Do you approve Rs.1508460 (Rs. 714260 for the school year 2007-2008 and Rs. 794200 for the school year 2008-2009) for SES-Hyderabad project? 2007 and 2008 budget was approved by Asha SV chapter and the funds were not sent because the organisation was working on FCRA. More details about SES can be found at: http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=784 SV approval history info.doc on the projects page has info about the history of SV funding. 2007 &2008 Expense sheet has the info about the expenses. Meeting minutes and email discussion can be found at: http://www.ashanet.org/projects-new/documents/784/2yrfunding-minutes+email.txt Responses Choices Votes % 1 reply Yes 12 100 No 0 0 ==================================================================== http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ashasv-vol/surveys?id=2984546 Do you approve INR 896402 towards June 2010 - April 2011 for SES Hyderabad. Budget and other details are uploaded at http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=784 Responses Choices Votes % 1 reply Yes 9 90 No 1 10 ====================================================================== Chapter mtg minutes - May 26th 2010: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ashasv-vol/message/7680 Talk by Mr.Kanakaraju SES: Mr. Kanakaraju -------------------- - Source of inspiration: father started SVES in Vidyanagar, Hyderabad. This school became very well known in this locality and the govt took over the operations. Today it has evolved to a degree college aided by govt. This was insipiration to provide service in the area of education. - After this he stuck to the field of education and took up the job as a teacher in govt school. During 40 years of the service, he identified what works and what doesnt. In 1983 he started SES in the intention of serving the urban poor. SES: - SES is secular. Nominal fees of Rs50 is collected per month. - Mr. Kanakaraju used to go door to door to get children to come to school - SES has been fortunate in having dedicated staff memebers to run the school - SES works towards imparting secular education and moral values Q: When did you apply for FCRA? A: Sep 2009 Q: Why was this not done earlier? A: The reason was the school helped the students of SES to appear as private canditates for govt exams. Also recognition needs various infrastruture for the school - building, play ground, etc Q: Are there any govt school nearby? A: Govt school for 6th to 10th std exists nearby. There are many private schools - very expensive. Q: Why did they need to apply for 1st to 10th std recognition when there is a govt school nearby for 6th to 10th std? A: Because the students dont want to go to the govt schools. If they can afford they go to private schools else they come to SES. They don't want to go to govt school Q: What will happen if Asha SV cannot support in future? A: - Get recognition and find another source of income - Get recognition so that students can transfer to other like minded schools - Use RTE to get the children of SES to go to other nearby private schools - Get recognized first to find other ways if Asha SV cannot support Q: RTI is a tool available which can be used to get a govt school to adopt these children. Have we done anything to change the govt schools nearby? A: No, because they are very powerful and it is hard to change anything in the got school. CBSE syllabus has been introduced in govt school and it is very hard for children to adapt. Q: Can the govt take over the school? A: First get recognition and then can try to get govt to provide aid and SES can become govt-aided like SVES - SES adds value by getting children to come to school unlike govt school which does not care about student attendance, learning, etc - This can still be done after the govt has taken over - SES can still do community involvement and can do after school resource center - SES adds value by actually having the children come to school everyday and learn. SES also has very dedicated staff . - Every independence day and republic day, the politicians want to take the children to rallies. It is hard fight to not allow this. It is a lot of effort to do this. Q: What if govt provides aid, will you accept it and will it cause any problem along the lines you are facing now on independence day? A: Yes, first we need to recognition and then we can possibly get govt aid. - Every organization needs couple of dedicated people to run it. - There is a committe and most of the work is handles by the CA, Principle, etc. Most of the people who work in SES do it for the sake of the vision - SES has people who are passionate about teaching. That is where schools like SES adds value. - No students go to tution and this is because of good teachers Q: How do SES students appear for public exams today? A: They appear through another school. Q: Are we adding more students to the school? A: They increased from 100 to 250 (when did this happen??). But now they add students only when there is dropout and also for first standard. Q: How many more students can you add with the current students? A: They can add more students for high school. Q: Can you admit children from higher middle class students so that they can pay fees which can offset some amount for fees of other children who cannot afford. A: This can happen only after recognition. - SES needs to improve science lab, library, computer lab , etc. This is very important for children learning. They have a computer teacher but no computers yet. Q: Can you send children outside to get practical knowledge by renting some place?A A: Yes, they will check some other schools nearby Q: Why did SVES quality come down? A: Over time, teachers lost motivation etc., also you cannot remove ineffective teachers etc. Q: After receiving recognition, next logical step is to get govt. aid. How do you know it will not follow the same path as SVES? A: - As long as core group is there, they will be motivated and it adds value to the community etc. Question is how do you ocme up with a sustainable model. Maybe look at other ways to get that sustainability. - Parents are very happy now - children getting good education, have dedicated teachers. - Recognition doesn't mean we have to pay salaries same as govt. schools, but when aided we have to Q: How do you make sure this core group that motivates teachers will continue in the future? A: ?? Q: So you have given up on the govt. system? A: It is a very painful process. I have worked at various level and it just doesn't work. Q: Initially you were charging kids a nominal amount (Rs. 50). When Asha funding came through, you stopped charging. Can you start charging them again - can they afford it? A: Yes, we can do that if we get recognition. Well, for the 100 we had they could, but when we scaled to 250, we didn't check if they could afford it. After recognition though, our policy is to educate only the poorest of the poor and downtrodden. Q: Are there any Asha vols in India working with SES? A: We sometimes request Asha Hyderabad to do site visits Q: What is your plan for finding more donors? A: Will start investigating private orgs in Hyderabad that might fund recognized schools AI: Meena will help file an RTI to find out what stage of recognition SES is in. Dilip to help. C: Two things going forward. Can we get some students to pay fees to help with funding. Don't know if we have bandwidth, but we should try to get some kind of after-school help for govt. kids so that we can maybe transition to helping govt. schools instead of a parallel structure. ================================================================================= Chapter mtg minutes - July 7th 2010: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ashasv-vol/message/7770 SES (Meena) - renewal: - school in slum area of Hyderabad; - applied for recognition which is in process; - Meena has not filed the RTI yet, which was set as a to-do from Mr Kanakaraju's visit - 256 students from ukg to 10th - 7 experienced teachers, and 5 new ones; in total 18 teachers including the Art, music etc.; 3 helpers - 4 10th std went to PU; 1 to diploma; Question - exact details please - Budget gone down since they removed the comp instructor and due to rent for 3 additional rooms; Total 8,96,402 - 36K unused money - Want to send the retro funds quickly; Meena has proposed that she will send it right away since we have done that for other projects; Chapter vote - 6 Yes, 1 Abstain =================================================================================== Chapter mtg minutes - Aug 11th 2010 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ashasv-vol/message/7851 SES School site visit update: Madhu ----------------------------------- - Visited in late June 28th - located in heart of Hyderabad - Vidyanagar - residential area, no schools nearby, densely populated, upper middle class neighbourhood but still many marginalized there - Mr. Kanakaraju was here a couple of months ago and we had a discussion with him about it then. He started this school - school is for marginalized sections of society - nearby govt. school, nobody passed from 10th std last year. mostly non-functional - only other options are expensive private schools - even for this school, Mr. Kanakaraju and staff had to put in lots of efforts to get parents to send their children here - classes from KG to 10th, total 256 students - rented 2 story building used for the school - has 10-12 rooms - small area (looks like storage space) which is their library. Not many books in library either. - kids are not let to take books home from library, just to read there. - lab was almost non-existent, hardly any equipment. - classes seem a little cramped but adequate for current # of students, not any more though. - no play area, very small area in front of building within the compound. - plan was to expand but they don't even own the building ... - now there is a waiting list of students trying to get in, but no bandwidth to take any more - 15 to 18 teachers. Some had experience teaching in other schools and had some good qualifications too - some new teachers hired recently - some are retired and doing this out of passion, and some are not even taking a salary - seems like the teachers are who are driving the school, and keeping quality high (backbone of school) - they were concerned that they didn't have more resources, but they are doing the best they can with what they have. - teachers include ones for art and music < Madhu showed photos from the project, list of teachers (one of them has a PhD) > - they have uniforms (as observed in the photos) - asked what parents do and where they live. Mostly auto-drivers, day labourers, clothes-pressers etc. - parents drop off kids, then come back to drop off lunch box etc. - more kids in younger classes, fewer in upper stds - kids were active, responsive, especially in lower classes. Upper classes kids seem somewhat shy. - asked questions on subjects. they could converse in english reasonably, and seemed okay on subjects - first standard kids could all write their names - learning levels seemed average to above average - state syllabus, english medium - 10th std is govt. exam, other levels are in house - math, science skills need improvement. - asked kids what they wanted to do, and all of them had lot of interest in getting through 10th and continuing and becoming doctors, engineers, teachers .... - turns out in the state exams whose results came out in June during this visit, the state topper's father was an auto driver. Mr. K made it a point to bring this to the children's attention, to encourage them. - Challenges: - no lab/equipment, so no practical learning - no computers (been promised computers from synopsys bangalore) - Possible improvements: - should try to leverage nearby software companies, like a mentorship program etc. - try to engage with nearby schools, like participate with science fairs at other schools - Concern earlier was that we are creating a parallel structure here, but on visiting seems like the school is needed - Should encourage them to find other sources of funding until which time Asha SV should continue funding (Madhu's suggestion)