Education in Bangalore

DEEDS social workers visit families in the community and talk to them about their children's education. The social workers' role is to provide information and enhance parents' awareness of the importance of education. The problems faced by the family which may be impeding the children's education are various and complex, and have to be addressed in more than one way. Thus the families will be informed of our range of programmes and told how each might help them.

In some cases children may be eligible for sponsorship. DEEDS staff monitor the progress of sponsored children and continue to offer support for the families; the families' economic situation may still be precarious. Women's associations also play an important role in providing support and motivation to mothers to continue sending their children to school.

After-school tuition centres are also provided for the children. These are intended as a place where children can do homework and get help from volunteers, when their home environment may not always be conducive towards studying. The tuition centres also aim to go beyond the education the children receive at school, by involving children more actively in their own education and by finding ways to interest the children in the subjects they study.

Day care centres

Our daycare centres for children under five years old cove hundreds of children in the Bangalore area. The centres have the following functions:

• Enabling older siblings to go to school : Providing the financial assistance for a child to go to school may be futile if the parents need the child to stay at home and look after younger children – especially a problem for female children.
• Enabling parents to go to work , increasing the family income. This also acts to empower women within the family and the community: by enabling the mother to go out to work her status, self-confidence and economic power are increased.
• The health status of the children is improved at this important stage of their lives, through the meals and healthcare programmes (immunisation, etc.) that are provided at the daycare centres.
• By giving the children play materials and pre-school education, the daycare centres prepare the children for school and make it less likely that they will fall behind when they start formal schooling.

Given these advantages, we plan to increase the number of daycare centres in the near future.

Non-Formal Education (NFE)

We run three NFE centres, covering hundreds of children, as part of its programme for the rehabilitation of working and non-school-going children. NFE can be the best option for children who cannot in the short term be enrolled in formal schools, due to the family's situation, and other problems that can impede enrolment, such as lack of proper certificates, or the child being unable to pass the entrance examination for a class appropriate to his or her age. The aims of NFE are:

• To equip the child with basic literacy and numeracy skills, essential for his or her later life.
• To prepare the child for entry or re-entry into formal school through syllabus-oriented education, and through learning skills such as self-discipline, co-operation and concentration.
• To impress on the child the importance of education , and to motivate the child to be interested in learning.
• To give the child a proper environment in which to develop, through learning, sport, creative activity, singing, games, etc.

The ultimate aim for each child coming to the NFE centres is that he or she should go to formal school. In cases where this is not possible the child is encouraged to go on to skills training programmes run by us and other government and non-governmental organisations once they have reached school-leaving age.

Children's Clubs

Each of the three areas covered by DEEDS in Bangalore city, as well as five of the villages covered by the Ponnai Community Project, have children's clubs. The clubs were set up between 1999 and 2001 as a vehicle for child, family and community development, by:

• Generating a community spirit and support mechanism amongst the children of a particular community by bringing together children from different schools and circumstances. This also provides children with alternative role models to the potentially negative ones in the home.
• Giving children an opportunity to voice their opinions and instigate change in their community through collective action, as a step towards fulfilling their right to participation in matters affecting them.
• Making learning relevant, meaningful and enjoyable , especially by encouraging children to act as educators for their peers. This can complement formal and non-formal schooling.
• Developing children in a more well-rounded, holistic fashion than traditional schooling, by equipping them with life skills – self-confidence, problem-solving, communication, co-operation – as well as useful knowledge – health, science, child rights, etc.

The children attending the clubs are a mixture of sponsored children and NFE children, aged between eight and 14 years. They meet every Saturday for two hours and have a Committee chosen from the children. The Clubs are meant to be run by the children, with adults acting as advisors upon request. Their wide-ranging activities to date have combined fun and learning, and have included history, health, cultlural programmes, science, sports and art.

Written by ex-DEEDS volunteer, Stuart Cameron.

SUCCESS STORY:
The Tamil Nadu State Government was concerned about school enrolment. In June 2000 the enrolment rate was only 25% . Together with DEEDS, a ten-day school enrolment campaign was carried out in the district. Our Educational Betterment Committees, along with sponsored children, local leaders and government officers, conducted the campaign, which was to encourage illiterate parents to send their children to school, and to highlight the importance of education. This is expected to be a landmark campaign, and the Government expects the enrolment rate to be raised to over 53%. Another such campaign was conducted in 2001 and it is to be repeated at the beginning of each academic year.