V-Excel site visit report - Education and vocation for special children


Date: Jun 23, 2008 (Monday, morning till afternoon)
Location: V-Excel Educational Trust, Mandaveli, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Volunteer: Manikandan Narayanan
Thanks to: Ajita Panshikar, Asha's contact at V-Excel for arranging and accompanying me during the site visit. 

1. Quick Overview
1.1 V-Excel
  To provide context, I start with an overview of V-Excel gathered from the Asha website for the V-Excel project and the last site visit report done more than a year ago in Feb, 2007. It would be useful to read the previous site visit report before reading this one, as I try to avoid a repetition of the organization structure, children's admission procedure, etc., of V-Excel that haven't changed since the last site visit. 


  V-Excel Educational Trust aspires to be a model school for children with mental and developmental challenges such as autism spectrum disorder, learning disability like dyslexia, mental retardation, etc. They educate and empower children with special needs to lead dignified, successful lives in the mainstream society. They use a multi-modal approach, where visual and tactile experiences are integrated into the method of instruction. 
  
  V-Excel manages several units including the Kaleidoscope Learning Center (KLC - a school addressing a wide range of developmental and learning problems), V-Excel Remedial Center (VRC - a feeder program for the KLC), Bridges Learning Academy (BLA - a school addressing specific learning disabilities), Academy of Teacher Excellence (ATE - offering a year long diploma for teachers in special education), and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA - a government initiative to provide integrated education for the disabled in rural areas) .  

  The strength of these various units during last and this year is provided below, to show the growth of V-Excel. Despite the ongoing nature of consultations, which stands so far at a whopping 1436, the main obstacle to V-Excel's growth is the lack of infrastructure and resources. 
Unit	Students	Students	Teachers
	(Last Yr)	(This Yr)	(This Yr)
KLC	54	68	17
BLA	7	7	4
VRC	82	104	11 
ATE	12	15	6
SSA	2740	3017	22

1.2 Student sponsorship
  Asha Seattle has been sponsoring the cost of educating 24 children with special educational needs. The intention of the sponsorship is to support children from lower middle-class families, who cannot afford otherwise this special education, which is more expensive than the standard educational stream due to the competitive teacher-student ratio that it demands, integration of therapy into the training, etc.  

  These 24 sponsored students are among the overall 38 students sponsored by V-Excel. So of the roughly 250 total students, Asha sponsors nearly 10% of them. Other sponsored children include those which teachers supporting singly or as a group, as well as those sponsored by individuals. V-Excel also has a few children sponsored by one or two charitable trusts in Chennai. 


2. Observing the quality of education/training
  Of the several units under the umbrella of V-Excel, my site visit mainly focused on the Kaleidoscope Learning Center (KLC) headed by principal Mrs. Gita Bhalla. The KLC center is very well-run and very active. In the few  hours I was there, I could see the enthusiasm among the teachers and therapists in the center, the well-disciplined students (except for one who was new, which further amplifies how much effort the teachers and therapists have put in disciplining the other students), state-of-the-art equipment like Miller board to condition and prepare students for their educational sessions, and computer-based training specialized to address the needs of these children. I also met with the founder and director Dr. Vasudha Prakash, who just returned from conducting a vocational training. She has a doctorate training in Special Education from Rutgers University, and was about to assess some children for their mental/learning condition. The parents of these children were waiting for the assessment/consultation, and due to the leadership and popularity of the center in special education and its limited intake per year, the admission waiting list is long.  


  Overall, I found excellent concord with the previous site visit report on how the organization is professionally run, well-managed and makes a difference in the world of disability. It continues to do so and I only see it growing. Ajita Panshikar, the primary V-Excel interface with Asha, was coincidentally in Chennai at that time and showed me around during the whole length of my visit, which was on the late morning till afternoon of June 23rd. 

  The education is also offered at a very custom and personal level to the students, which is very important in a center for special education. This is made possible by the excellent student:teacher ratio of 4:1 or 5:1 that I observed in most of the classes, and the commitment of the teachers to identify and groom the raw talent and inherent interests of the students. For instance, one of the students Ram was very silent when I tried to approach and talk to him. Then his teacher said that he loves movies, and he immediately opened up and started talking about the movie Kuruvi by his favourite actor Vijay. The teacher also makes sure he develops his social skills in interacting with other people, and a respect and interest for the training he is being offered. The center also maintains a progress report of all students, and they are filled with lively colors and photos of the students, their personal interests etc. to motivate and encourage them to learn new things. As an illustration, I am attaching the progress report of two students that Asha is sponsoring. It was emailed by Ajita Panshikar on request. I have also attached a set of photos that I took during the site visit in this report. Though I didn't interact with Affrin or Sriram directly, I did interact with Affrin's father for quite some time and he was happy about her progress, as discussed more in the next section. 

a) Shahnaaz Affrin is an eight year old, bright eyed & friendly child. A child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), she has difficulties in social, emotional and communication skills. With regular Occupational Therapy and other interventions, Affrin showed good progress during the year. Her sitting tolerance has improved and she sits through group activities. She follows the school routine. She has learnt to respond to greetings and to express her needs through cards and pictures and sounds. One area where she has made great progress is in the area of academics. Her reading and writing skills have improved and she has motivation to know and learn more. We are now working on improving her comprehension. Affrin was put on a structured program in computer to develop keyboard familiarity, reading and spelling. 
b) Sriram U is a seven year old child with Autism, falling in the moderate range of the spectrum. He goes to a regular matriculation school and he is receiving remedial intervention from V-Excel so that he is able to continue inclusive schooling there. He receives cognitive remediation, communication therapy and academic inputs. Though verbal, he uses words only to echo; meaningful usage of words is at a minimal level and he uses gestures for any communication. He prefers to be independent for any other need such as eating, toileting, dressing etc.  His main success with us has been in the area of expression of needs and in independent writing for academic purpose. His recent school performance has been very encouraging and he has managed to get good grades. We are now focusing on his expression of emotions. 
  
3. Reaching economically challenged sections
  Given the quality education offered at V-Excel in an urban area, the next question of most interest to Asha would be to find its reach to economically disadvantaged sections of the society. I learnt that V-Excel does not have the bandwidth to proactively screen for children with special needs among lower middle-class or poor people, same as last year (see last year's site visit report). However I also learnt that they do perform an assessment of the household income of students admitted through the normal admissions procedure, and uses it to decide eligibility for subsidy of their fees using Asha-provided funds or other means. The application form has an entry for total household income, which is verified later. Sometimes the household income is also inferred later from interacting with the students. 

  The household income is verified by Mrs. B. Sundari, the managing trustee and one of the founders of V-Excel Educational Trust. She, affectionately called the Aunty in V-Excel, shortlists for sponsorship students whose total household income (from both parents or other means) is less than Rs.10,000 per month. Given that the cost of urban living and accomodation in Chennai is high, and the cost of education at V-Excel is Rs. 1800-2700 per child per month (same fee structure as last year), this seems a reasonable cutoff to decide for sponsorship or subsidy of the fees. Also from my understanding, since the salary check is not always done before the admission and not promised when the child is admitted, I would assume the family of the children who are serious about admitting their child here would be more likely middle-class or lower middle-class than poor.  

  I wish I had met more parents of Asha-sponsored children in this site visit. Because of the time of the day, difficulty of the parents to make time amidst their job schedules and since most of them do not drop-off their child themselves in the morning, I could only meet the father of Affrin, whose progress report is given above. Affrin's father works as a salesman in an electrician's shop, and he was quite happy about the progress he sees in Affrin since she joined V-Excel and how his efforts to develop her learning skills in other schools was not fruitful. He was also happy about the sponsorship. He doesn't know that the source of the sponsorship is Asha, according to V-Excel's policy of hiding sponsorship sources. While meeting him, Aunty also spoke about how the father of Sriram, whose progress report is also given above. Sriram's father Uppili works as a temple priest, with a non-steady income mainly collected from people's offerings. Affrin is supported by an amount of Rs. 12000 from Asha funds, while Sriram is supported by Rs. 42000. I also met Mithun, another Asha-sponsored child for Rs. 12000. He loves his appa (father), so I tried to ask him more about his father, why he likes his father, his father's occupation etc. But he was not willing to open up with a stranger, so I left. 

  I think it is a sensitive task for Asha to do a detailed verification of the household incomes and of the usage of funds for sponsorship, despite the warm relations we share with V-Excel. However if the Asha Seattle chapter members insist, in order that they can make a more informed, confident and hopefully positive decision, then I think it is reasonable to ask V-Excel to provide the exact household income they have estimated for each Asha-sponsored child, and be more transparent about the estimation method and what they believe to be the accuracy of these estimates. 
It might also help to ask V-Excel how they determine the allotment to each student (some are given Rs. 48000 and others Rs. 12000). 


  The forthcoming renewal of Asha funds is a request for Rs. 7,56,000 for 24 students, the same amount and number of student supported as for last year. Ajita conveyed that V-Excel would like to include some new children who require support to replace some students who have moved out this year due to completion of the program (required only remedial intervention) or have got family transfers. Since last year, a majority viz., 18 students continue to be in the list while 6 others have been replaced.   
  To know the allotment of the total money to each of these children, please contact the project stewards. The list of these 24 children would read as – G. Akash, Keshaav A, M. Mahesh Kumar, U. Sriram, T. Vinay Kumar, Ramachandran Sunder, Aditya Prasad, S. Shanaaz Affrin, Namratha Mahaveerchand, Mithun Suresh Kumar, Ali Asgar Taher Lohani, K.S. Mohammathu Mazeen, Reena Margaret, M. Vafir Ahamed, Kevin Christopher Rayan, Mohamed Suhail Ahamed Ansari, David Ho Thomas, S. Dayanath, Annie George, S.R. Ponharish, Mohamed Moiz, Tasneem A.T., S. Balaji and Kalimuthu Gajesh.