I’d like to share something with this audience. Do I have your permission?” The little girl from class 7 who asked this question was hardly half my height. I asked her to go ahead. “I wanted to sing in the competition in my school. My classmates and other students laughed at me. But I sang better than everybody.”

The girl was glowing with pride, as she shared this with the students who had assembled from 10 different schools. The occasion was the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) organized for the students of classes 7, 8 and 9 from corporation-run schools. The 70-odd students who attended the function came from10 different corporation run schools in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. It was wonderful to see the confidence in the girl’s eyes. There was no sign of nervousness. She was not alone. All the students in the programme were confident, eloquent, and not at all shy. I expected to find tongue-tied children and was therefore pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

It all started last year, when I had to organize the RYLA for school students in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. About 100 students from different schools participated. The regular district RYLA is conducted in English. The resource persons speak in English, and, the participants are generally from private, English medium schools. They have a reasonably good knowledge of English and speak fluently in the language.

The students from the government-run schools, however, lack adequate knowledge of the language and their self-confidence in such environments is low. They find mingling with their peers from private schools a challenge. But these students too need the benefits that RYLA offers. My experience of organizing one district RYLA, attended by about 100 students of Hyderabad-Secunderabad and trying to teach spoken English to the Class 10 students of a government school for a year led me to approach the problem by carrying the solution to the students. I decided to organize an RYLA for them in the language of their choice-Telugu. I identified about 100 students studying in Class 10 from a government school, both boys and girls. While these students begin studying English from class 3, their understanding and competence levels is poor even in class 10. They come from poor families with little or no education. The environment generally does not encourage education. When asked, the children said that the main reason they don’t even attempt to speak in English is the fear of ridicule from friends and family. All these factors combined put these otherwise street-smart children in a downward spiral in terms of academic performance and employment prospects. To digress a little, one of the major reasons for trying to teach them spoken English was to make them more employable and maybe increase their entry level salaries.

As a first step, I shared with them what RYLA is; the kind of topics usually covered and the potential benefits. I also got the school headmistress and a few teachers interested in this. This helped everyone get involved.

As a next step, I sat with the students to ask them about the topics that would be of interest to them. They were very excited and after the initial hesitation, the topics flew hard and fast. Speaking in English, relationships between boys and girls, career options, were some of the top topics.

I’ve now already been involved in three similar RYLAs this year in addition to the main one in English. The response has been uniformly positive. I’ve also just finalized fixing two more RYLAs for this Rotary year (July to June) one in Tamil and one in Kannada. Discussions are on to find suitable dates for one in Urdu, in the Old City part of Hyderabad. As India is a country with several languages and dialects, it would definitely be useful to reach children across languages and expose them to wider opportunities.

How do we reach out to the children? Essentially, I’ve been inviting and involving Rotarians who understand the problem, are empathetic and good at establishing a quick and easy relationship with children. The programme currently is only of a day’s duration and hence requires immediate connection with the children. The topics are of interest to the children and hence improve the opportunity for them to be participative. They are removed from the day-to-day classroom environment and that is also helpful.

These children only need to be encouraged and exposed to new ideas and opportunities. The barrier of English language, when overcome, will certainly help us reach out to these bright children who’re currently marginalized for no fault of theirs. Such a large talent pool when brought into the mainstream, I hope will make a great difference in the children’s lives.

We need to take this process forward and encourage these children through sustained exposure to such programmes to merge with the other advantaged groups over time.

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) is an intensive training program that brings together youth and young adults, ages 14-30, to further develop character and leadership skills and learn about Rotary. RYLAs often take the form of a seminar, camp, or workshop. It is generally a 3-10 day affair and is organized by Rotarians at the club, district, or multi-district level.
Participants are nominated by local Rotary clubs, which often cover all expenses. For these young adults, this recognition offers the opportunity to build self-confidence, gain exposure to a variety of issues and people, meet active community leaders, and learn valuable information and career skills.
Each RYLA shares the following program objectives:

• To demonstrate Rotary’s respect and concern for youth
• To encourage and assist young people in responsible and effective voluntary youth leadership by providing them with a valuable training experience
• To foster continued and stronger leadership of the youth by the youth
• To publicly recognize the many young people who are rendering service to their communities as youth leaders.

The author is a Structural Engineer, interested in literacy and a Rotarian who has been actively involved in RYLA. He can be reached at . For details about RYLA visit www.rotary.org.

A news report on Makkal Television on July 23rd 2008 reported that government schools in Tiruchi district were closing down due to lack of resources and declining strength. On hearing this, we at Kalanjiyam felt that this was a very disturbing scenario and one that we believed could be reversed if we all worked together. At Kalanjiyam, we are in the process of developing a successful model for having local non governmental organisations working effectively to mobilise the community around improving education in government schools. We would like to share our model with other communities, NGOs, and government officials so that they can draw from our experiences.

Kalanjiyam is working intensively in 3 primary schools and 1 middle school covering a belt of about 8 to 9 villages in Maduranthakam and Cheyyur taluks in Kancheepuram district by mobilising and coordinating the local village community, parents, local leaders, officials and school administration. Our approach has been multi-pronged, to improve environment, provide educational resources, improve curriculum and address children’s nutritional and health needs. Since we started working, enrollment has substantially increased; the children’s enthusiasm and the participation of parents and community in improving quality of education is becoming a reality.

We have improved the school environment for the children by providing tables and benches or mats for seating, wiring for electricity where required and equipping schools with fans and lights. A member of the Kalanjiyam staff works in each school, spending half a day helping teach the children. Members of the Kalanjiyam staff are young women from local villages whom we train to interact with and teach children.

We have been developing the middle school as a model school in the area; we introduced computer education for the students and appointed a computer teacher to teach the basics of computers. We have now extended this program and provided computers to all the three primary schools.

Other extra curricular programs were introduced to stimulate intellectual development to broaden the child’s perspective. Every week we also bring a music teacher from Chennai to teach the children classical music. Similarly, a drawing teacher from Chennai comes to the school every week to teach the children drawing. All schools have been provided comprehensive sports equipment so that the children get an opportunity for physical activities after school.

Recognising that nutrition is an important factor for enhancing children’s learning we started providing weekly supplements of fruits to children in all schools. In the primary schools, we provide sathu mavu and extra vegetables for the daily noon meal. Kalanjiyam staff regularly monitors the progress and changes among children, in terms of their attention, interaction, performance in school as well as their health, by checking their weight and height every three months.

After the introduction of these programs, there has been a transformation among the children, the schools and the community. There is an increasing participation among parents who are now taking an active interest in their children’s education. Many parents who were sending their children to private schools began to re-enroll their children back into our local village schools. The teachers, with support from parents, have initiated more school programs for special events.

We started coordinating between the different primary schools to strengthen networking among the various panchayat schools for effective local coordination and for increasing enrollment. We have now provided a school van so that children do not have to walk long distances to come to school.

Every student now in all the four schools has ID cards with their name, parent’s name and blood group. The children from these villages are more likely to be one of the first to know their blood group among rural schools! We have also started a program providing Health Cards to all of the students, nearly 300, so that they can get free health care from the nearest town. The main objective of this program is to ensure that health is recognised as a right of children and to make sure their health problems are dealt with in a timely manner.

All of this is possible as the basis of Kalanjiyam is the community; it is the local communities that run the initiatives and activities with external support mainly in the form of financial resources. In the early stages, a Kalanjiyam village committee was established to identify priorities and implement the community efforts; they in turn identified young men and women from local villages to run the activities; local panchayat and other community leaders are consulted; and local resources and enterprises are fully utilised so as to gain the participation of the community in all activities.

What we have learnt from our work is that making way for real change is possible from within the community; a key factor is changing attitudes and this in turn impacts what actions are taken. It needs to be understood that closing down of a local village school is not a small matter and one that requires attention of everyone in the village/ community. Closing down of local panchayat schools in the long run will impact further development of the village and the communities that live there.

It has to be recognised that we as a community can do something, by taking small efforts that can bring change for a better future. A way of working together will make this possible; if only local schools, teachers, parents, community leaders, local officials, local NGOs, etc., come together, it is possible to prevent our schools from closing down and to do much more for the brighter future of our children.

The author is the Director of Kalanjiyam. He is a social worker with more than 15 years of experience. He can be reached at kalanjiyam@gmail.com.

Kalanjiyam

Kalanjiyam was founded in July 2006 by Munusamy Raviraaj with the vision of developing a community development model where the core guiding principle is involvement and ownership of the community in the process of development. Kalanjiyam means “Collections” (of people, works, knowledge, wealth, etc.) and represents that which brings together the community to make a difference.

A main thrust of Kalanjiyam is to bring about attitude changes, along with community involvement in all the efforts. Kalanjiyam’s mission is to improve access to and quality of education, improve health and well-being, improve knowledge and awareness and build the skills and capacity of communities.

CLEAN toilets with running water are keeping girls in school and bridging the gender divide at six government-aided schools in Bishnupur I in West Bengal’s South 24-Parganas district. The schools here have spotless toilets thanks to the efforts of Nishtha, an NGO, and Water for People, an international funding group.

Ever since improved toilets with incinerators were installed, no child has dropped out of school. Earlier, around eight per cent of girls would leave school between Class 5 and Class 7.

“The improved toilets and running water are a major incentive for them to attend regularly and not be absent,” says Mrinal Kumar Das, proudly. He is an assistant teacher at the Kaastekumari High School. “In fact, in a Muslim minority area, where girls are generally married off at puberty, the improved toilets and hygiene awareness camps have brought in a revolution of sorts. Our students are now keen to study further after finishing school.”

Not only the girls, but female teachers and staff are grateful to Nishtha for providing the toilets. The NGO works in the area of water and sanitation.

Jaya Karmakar, a teacher at the Kaastekumari High School, joined the school 30 years ago. It takes her three hours of commuting each way to get here from Beleghata in north Kolkata. In the past, once she reached school, using the toilet would be a nightmare since there was no running water. There was no tube-well either. A peon would fetch water from a well across the road and store it in the school’s premises. This water was all that students and teachers had access to through the day.

Roma Mandal, an employee who travels all the way from Amtala, one and a half hours away, says, “It was terrible during my periods. Using the toilet after having traveled all that distance to school was a nightmare.”

“Boys and girls would just excuse themselves from class and go behind some bushes outside to relieve themselves”, explains Hasanuzzaman, also an assistant teacher.

The students at the Gabhena Chhatrabandhu Vidypith in the same block did have running water in the toilet. But the school had just one toilet for 1,864 students. For the girls, using the toilet during their periods was tough. There were no facilities for garbage disposal either.

Not surprisingly, girl students would be frequently absent. Once they reached puberty many would just give up and drop out of middle school.

At the Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith ever since the improved toilets, drinking water taps and wash rooms were set up, water and sanitation (Watsan) committees, comprising boys and girls, have set new precedents in self-governance and teamwork. Each committee has 10 members and is annually appointed. It maintains the toilets by collecting a fee of Re 1 per student per month. This is used to buy phenyl, soap, sanitary napkins, toilet brushes and buckets to keep the toilet clean and hygienic. The committee also talks to students about hygiene and cleanliness once a week during their environment studies class.

Although the Vidyapith is in the rural outskirts of Barulpur town, its premises are immaculately clean. Every schoolgirl now flushes the toilet after use, washes her hands after using the toilet, and uses the single wash room connected with an improvised incinerator to dispose off her sanitary napkins. Depending on need, the used napkins are burnt in the incinerator once or twice a week to maintain hygiene and prevent any accumulation of unhealthy garbage. The toilet for the boys is also clean.

Although the Kaastekumari High School cannot compare with the Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith in terms of overall cleanliness, the toilets are well-maintained and clean.

“Since this school is in the interior, awareness levels among students were very poor when we first started work,” explains Jharna Bari, a Nishtha instrusctor. “There would be bits of paper, pencil scrapings and peel strewn all over the classrooms. Once the children were trained at environment camps on our premises and came into contact with students from other schools, there was a sea-change in their attitude.”

Today, students in this school never relieve themselves outside. Working shoulder to shoulder with the boys has given girls a fair measure of confidence. The boys too have started treating the girls with greater respect. “Boys realise that girls can be equally efficient and earnest about making a difference,” says Sunil Kumar Ghosh, assistant teacher at Gabberia Chhatrabandhu Vidyapith.

In West-Bengal 1.04 crore children enroll in primary school but just 14.05 lakhs make it to secondary level. More than half dropout at middle and secondary levels as per the statistics compiled by the Bureau of Applied Economics and Statistics, Government of West Bengal in July 2007. If the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan is to make any headway the need of schoolgirls on the verge of puberty must be kept in mind.

This article has been reprinted here with permission. The article was first published in Vol. 6, No. 12, November 2009 issue of Civil Society.

India has made great strides in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS and yet there are considerable gaps in people’s knowledge about the illness and misconceptions abound as to how HIV/AIDS spreads. As a result, people with HIV/AIDS continue to be discriminated against. If people affected by HIV/AIDS have to be accepted by society we need to have better informed communities, so that younger people, particularly children, are armed with the right information and the right attitude to deal with the risk of HIV infection. The National AIDS Control Organization reports that there are 53,000 HIV positive children in our country today. According to UNAIDS, young people starting from their teenage years are at increased risk of contracting the illness, as about one third of the HIV positive cases in our country belong to the age group of 15 to 25 years.

Today, talking about HIV/AIDS to children is not a choice but a pressing need. We need to start a dialogue with children wherever it would be most effective. As with many other health issues the best place to address this most effectively is when children are in school. Teachers, being among the most influential people in a child’s life, are best placed to impart information on HIV/AIDS.

Therefore it becomes crucial that teachers are well informed about HIV/AIDS. Do we know how teachers view HIV/AIDS and related issues? How much do they know about HIV transmission and issues surrounding HIV/AIDS? How do teachers today discuss these matters with their students? Talking about HIV/AIDS also means having to touch upon sex and sexuality – are these issues addressed by teachers in schools? Earlier studies have revealed that knowledge about HIV/AIDS varies amongst teachers in India, as do the practices of imparting sex education in schools. To assess the current situation, Kalanjiyam Trust recently conducted a study among teachers in four districts of South India. The results, which were quite interesting, were presented at the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP) held in Indonesia in August 2009. The study involved 100 teachers from urban and rural areas in the four selected districts. The teachers were asked to fill an objective pre-coded questionnaire which elicited their views and practices on life skills and sex education in schools, and assessed their knowledge, views and perceptions of HIV/AIDS and its importance for young people.

Profile of Teachers
Of the teachers surveyed, 57% were from government schools, 24% from private and 19% from other government aided schools. In 65% of these schools the main medium of instruction was the local language, English was the medium of instruction in 24% of the schools and 14% of schools used both English and the local language as the medium of instruction. The mean age of the teachers in the study was 41 years with 68% being between 25-45 years of age. On an average the teachers interviewed had about 13 years of teaching experience.

HIV/AIDS knowledge
The study found that all teachers were aware of one or more ways in which HIV spreads and 69% of the teachers had knowledge of all the four ways in which the illness spreads. When asked how one could identify whether a person had contracted HIV/AIDS, fewer than one-third of the teachers reported that HIV could only be medically diagnosed through a blood test (31%). About 39% of the teachers were not aware that there were drugs to treat those affected by HIV/AIDS and 18% reported they were not sure or did not respond. Though 43% were aware of drugs to treat people affected by HIV/AIDS, few (18%) were able to name them or the treatment (ART).

There were misconceptions about how HIV spreads among 16% of the teachers. The most common misconception was that HIV can be cured (27%). But there were others as well. For instance, 14% believed that HIV spreads through sneezing, coughing or spitting, 13% said it could be transmitted through saliva, tears or sweat, and 6% believed that sharing clothes with an infected person could pass on the virus. 21% of teachers thought that HIV/AIDS could be prevented by regular physical exercise and 55% said by abstaining from sex. One-fifth of the teachers knew of people affected by HIV/AIDS.

However, despite the relatively high level of awareness, about 57% of the teachers did not think that young people were at any greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Yet a disproportionately high number (91%) agreed that young people need to be well informed about HIV/AIDS. Nearly half the teachers agreed that the best place for young people to learn about HIV/AIDS was the school (47%), while 21% thought they should read books on the subject, 17% said doctors were the best to impart such information, 7% said parents and the remainder said from others.

Life skills and sex education
About 65% of the teachers reported that they had taught some aspect of life skills education, though less than 40% of teachers had received any formal training on life skills education. Teachers’ views on what encompassed life skills education was limited with only 9% considering sex education or talking about HIV/AIDS a part of life skills education. When asked about the need for sex education, 59% of the teachers agreed that sex education should be included in the school curriculum. About 42% of the teachers said sex education was included in their school curriculum presently.

For those who disapproved of sex education in school, the most common reasons were: school was not the right place, talking about sex would instigate risky behaviors, could be distracting to students and that parents may disapprove.

Discussion
The findings from the study suggest that there is a definite need to strengthen the gaps in knowledge and understanding of HIV/AIDS and life skills education among teachers. While teachers recognize that students need to know about life skills and HIV/AIDS, there is poor understanding of what life skills education comprises. More initiatives are required to strengthen the knowledge of teachers about HIV/AIDS and to equip them with the necessary skills.

While there is agreement that including HIV/AIDS and sex education in the school curriculum is an important pre-requisite for reducing vulnerabilities among future generations, their inclusion is still controversial and hotly debated in our country. Very rarely is HIV/AIDS discussed in the home; most often young boys and girls learn about sexuality through the media, through friends or other non formal sources. It is important that as a society we ensure our children get to hear about sex through gatekeepers such as teachers, so that they get the correct information. For this, both formal and non-formal opportunities should be made available for teachers to bring HIV/AIDS and sex education to students. It is important that we advocate the creation of an environment that makes this possible.

The author is founder and director, Kalanjiyam Trust, Chennai. He can be reached at kalanjiyam@gmail.com.

School classrooms are the ideal places for children to learn and practice good nutrition as they spend a large amount of their time in school and have one or two meals a day at school. Given this, not imparting nutrition education is a missed opportunity to empower children with better knowledge on nutrition and influence their dietary habits. In a recent survey conducted by the Kalanjiyam Trust (refer to article ‘Aspirations of rural students’ that appeared in Teacher Plus, September 09), a majority of the students from rural schools reported that their only role model was their teacher, indicating the power a teacher has to mould the children.

Our children’s nutrition status
Including nutrition education in schools is the need of the hour in a country where a large majority of children and adolescents are undernourished and have a number of nutritional deficiencies, such as iron, calcium and others that are vital for normal growth and development. .The National Family Health Survey (NFHS 3) conducted in all states in India (between 2005-06) provides a dismal picture of our children’s nutrition status. About 46% of the children under three years were underweight compared to the 47% reported in NFHS 2 conducted in 1998 -99. This indicates that nearly every second child is underweight, which is worse than in sub-Saharan Africa. Added to this, 38% of the children were found to be stunted (not having adequate height for their age), a sign of prolonged undernourishment; and about 80% of the children were anemic, an increase from 74% in NFHS 2. This picture is sufficient to understand the nutritional profile of students who are starting their lives at a disadvantage, which has to be overcome through intense nutritional supplementation and proper balanced diet.

Link between nutrition and school performance
Just as children need to understand the importance of good nutrition, teachers need reinforcement on how good nutrition contributes to a child’s cognitive abilities and ultimately his/her academic performance. A teacher might want to examine the differences between a student scoring high marks, one scoring mediocre marks and one who is a poor performer in the same class. Since the teacher does not take separate classes for good and poor students, it does not take long to realize that factors other than the teaching method are the major contributing factor of which a student’s health/nutritional status is among the foremost. A student’s current mental ability, IQ and mental health (which are directly related to school performance) are strongly linked to nutritional status, including that of the mother at the time of pregnancy, the child’s birth and early childhood, as well as his past and present dietary patterns. In fact, Science tells us that brain chemistry can change with the lack of even one nutrient and can give rise to diminished mental ability, emotional or behavioral disturbances, anxiety and many other disorders. One can then imagine the situation of children who routinely come to school without eating any breakfast, or who predominantly consume rice and do not get a balanced supply of essential vitamins in their diet.

Integrating nutrition in the classroom
To be effective, a nutrition lesson needs to be provided in conjunction with a school breakfast and lunch programme that will help exemplify the lessons being taught to children. In schools where breakfast and noon meals are provided, teachers can talk about the nutrition value of foods being provided and its connection to health and performance. In public schools, teachers can, in conjunction with Anganwaadi workers, mobilize local resources to increase the amount of vegetables or pulses used in the noon meal, and introduce fruits or other nutritious snacks for children.

Besides imparting information about nutrition and the links between diet, health and learning, teachers can focus on giving individual attention to developing skills among children in selecting foods and work with parents in preparation of foods. This is essential for children who are found to be physically weak and not doing well in class. Teachers can easily assess the dietary patterns of children who come from families that are primarily wage labourers, as the nutrition status of children from such families are likely to be more compromised. In such situations teachers can reinforce that a good nutritious diet is possible within the available means and help such children and their parents make healthier food choices using locally available options. Parents can channel the small amounts they give their children to purchase fast foods, junk or packaged foods, to rather include whole grains, milk or bananas.

Even without having a formal class time for nutrition education in school, teachers can employ innovative approaches for talking about nutrition in their classrooms:

• Using examples from health and nutrition in mathematics lessons.
• Providing nutrition tips or trivia and presenting a nutritional value every day in class.
• Checking with students randomly on what they ate for breakfast, and giving ‘stars’ to students who had breakfast and a balanced diet.
• Using stories, drama and role play activities during regular classes to help teach and reinforce the messages on nutrition and health.
• Including compositions / essay writing contests on health and nutrition.
• Presenting brief facts about the situation of our children’s nutrition in history or geography classes.

Teachers can also advocate with the school administration to organize an annual health and nutrition day in their school, where special program or talks can be presented to children on nutrition, health and hygiene.

Teacher’s club
While teachers face many challenges in bringing nutrition into the classroom, it is important to realize that they need to have an understanding of nutrition and have access to information sources to effectively impart nutrition education. This was in fact the overarching need expressed by teachers who participated in a programme organized by the Kalanjiyam Trust, to provide information on nutrition to rural teachers.This need triggered formation of a local Teacher’s Club, to serve as a resource and to support teachers in their efforts to integrate health and nutrition in school. In the upcoming months, Kalanjiyam will enroll teachers from the local schools and based on the needs expressed, organize informational and skill building workshops. Such a teacher’s club we expect will become a forum where teachers can share their experiences for effective cross learning.

The important role of teachers in imparting knowledge on nutrition as well as instilling good dietary habits among children must be acknowledged and put to practice, given their power of influence over students. By talking about nutrition in the classroom teachers will more effectively be able to succeed in the ultimate aims of educating children and contribute to realizing the dream of healthier future generations of children in our country.

Basic food groups

It is never too early or too late to talk to children about nutrition. Children of all ages can be taught about basic nutritional requirements, the main food groups, types of foods in each group, the health benefits of each and how they can include these in their diet. Children in higher classes can be taught about the key nutrients for each food group, the recommended amounts to be had and about combination foods, those having multiple nutritious values.

The food guide pyramid is a useful tool that teachers can use in the classroom to help explain to children what a good diet is and what kind of diet is right for them. The name, food pyramid suggests that more servings are required of the foods at the bottom of the pyramid and fewer servings of those at the top to derive the necessary nutrition from them. Within each group it suggests varying serving sizes of food groups according to age, gender and activity levels.

The food pyramid, gives the basic food groups required for a healthy nutrition rich diet for all children. These include: grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and cheese, meat, beans, poultry, fish and other food groups (oils, fats and sugars). Children can be encouraged to adopt the following practices to eat healthy:

• Eat foods from all five food groups every day as they are all equally important.
• Eat different foods from a food group every day even though they have the same nutrients, as the amounts of nutrients in each food vary, and therefore including different sources helps make a balanced diet.
• Make food choices that are nutritious but low in fat; while meat and poultry are important, low fat choices among this food group are best for long-term health.
• Never skip breakfast as it is the most important meal of the day.

While talking to children about the other food groups, teachers should tell the children that limited amounts of “other” foods (fried foods, sweets, and other fast foods) are okay, as long as they don’t take the place of the more nutritious, first five-food-group food, and they balance their choices with plenty of daily physical activity. Teachers also need to address children’s likes and dislikes of foods so as to influence them adopt healthy eating habits. Along with this, encouraging personal cleanliness, good hygienic practices such as insisting that they always wear slippers outside their homes are important messages that children should receive in school.

The author is founder and director, Kalanjiyam Trust, Chennai. He can be reached at kalanjiyam@gmail.com.

Levels of motivation
When we asked them about their interest in studies, all students reported that they were motivated to study; nearly 45% said that science was their favorite subject and 533 out of 538 students expressed that they wished to go on to college.

Engineering, the police, nursing, law, teaching and medicine – these were the popular occupations that the majority of students (96%) wanted to get into after completing their studies. About 3% of the students expressed a desire to become a collector, minister, scientist and others and only 1% were not interested in studying further.

All students said that this choice was their own, based on their interest in that particular field. Fifty per cent of the students also reported that they were interested in a particular occupation as they wanted to serve their villages in some way, offer free medical service, teach others what they have learnt or see to it that their community was free of crime.

The most striking to note is the response of these students about their role models. About 19% of the students reported that their teachers were their role models while 78% said they did not have any. This strongly suggests that especially for rural students, teachers are often the only exposure to the outside world, and can strongly influence and motivate them.

Support available for rural students
Most students were confident that their parents would support them toward their educational goals (71%) while 21% were not sure; the remaining 8% students felt that their parents would not support them or felt that the support would depend on the family circumstances in the future. Still when it came to finances, about 57% students feared that their parents would not be able to bear the cost of their education, another 41% thought that their parents would bear part of the cost (25% to 50%) or that they would take a loan.

Finally, when we asked them what was the support or encouragement they required to pursue their goals, 85% said that they wanted encouragement from their parents and teachers and 14% said friends and the society should encourage them. Yet, in the present moment only 33% of students felt they had received any encouragement from their parents and far less from their teachers (11%).

Outcome in 10th standard
Given the above, let’s see what happens when these rural students complete the 10th standard. To find out we conducted another survey in the same 20 villages we had selected and went to all the homes that had students who had written their 10th standard exams in March 2009.

A total of 168 students from these villages had taken the 10th exams and of these 43% (72 – 39 girls and 33 boys) had failed. Of those who had passed 84 were going on to the 11th standard in a school nearby, a few were going to work and the remaining were undergoing some vocational training. Of those who failed only 26 (36% of those who had failed) planned to re-take the exam.

In the final analysis we found that 51% of those who passed the 10th standard were moving on to the 11th standard. Sixteen per cent of the students, regardless of whether they passed or failed were working, and 10% had no further plans or said they were not interested in studying further.

Outcome in the 12th standard
Moving forward we tracked the outcome among all the students who took the 12th standard exams from the same 20 villages in March 2009. Totally 78 students took the 12th exam and of these 63 had passed. Forty five per cent (35 students) were moving on to college, while 22% planned to work and 17% wanted to do some vocational training. The remaining had no immediate plans.

Conclusion
If this data can be considered a reflection of what’s happening across rural India, it says that no more than about 7% of the students who go to the 8th, 9th and 10th move on to college from rural areas. Cleary from the 8th-10th standard students we learned that it is not that these students lack motivation, on the other hand all of them expressed a desire to study and had high aspirations for their future. What happens to these students after this stage?

Apart from finances, students need support and encouragement in their environment, in the school, from their teachers, parents and all those around them. In school, teachers and all educators need to help maintains students’ motivation and interest in various subjects. The school environment needs to be conducive to education, and have the resources to guide learning and to challenge students. School is the place where students spend a majority of their time, and for these rural students it is largely the only place where they are engaged intellectually. Many of the students in our survey reported that their favorite subject was science, but very few rural schools have access to a well equipped laboratory to engage and build on the students’ interest in science. Teachers have a powerful role here and can be a role model for students, help to build and sustain their interests in subjects and education in general. Needless to say, the role of parents is most crucial in influencing and determining their children’s educational attainment. Though many of these students come from families where both parents have little education, it is imperative that these parents and families motivate and encourage these students to aim higher, so as to complete their education. Beyond this as a community we all need to listen to the voices of these students and as a society enable more of our rural students to complete 12th and go on to college.

For our part, Kalanjiyam is trying to work with communities, schools and students in finding ways to keep more students in school till 12th and getting them to college. Besides providing educational aid and advising parents and teachers on these issues, we have a program annually to motivate 10th standard students by offering a scholarship to those who secure more than 80% in the 10th exams. Every year since we instituted this program more students are securing more than 80% marks. The other change we see is that more than 80% of parents / guardians come with their children for the program. These we believe are steps in a positive direction. We need to recognise that every student starts going to school with a dream of achieving something big. If only we pay closer attention to the needs of these students and find ways of helping and supporting them, surely we can increase the chances for more of these rural students to go beyond 12th to college and realise their dreams.

The author is Founder & Director, Kalanjiyam. He can be reached at .