HEALDS : NON-FORMAL EDUCATION CENTERS

1. HEALDS : NON-FORMAL EDUCATION CENTERS Mohanur, Namakkal District, Tamilnadu, Chennai Half Yearly Report - Koussalya Balasubramanian

2. NFE Centers “NFE centers are typically created for children who are unable to attend an entire day of school. Often these centers serve as a stepping stone to more formal education. NFEs are, as their name implies allow non-formal enrollment � children can join irrespective of their age. Some NFEs tend to be non-formal in content � they can follow varying curriculums. There are bridge schools that offer several years of curriculum in a condensed manner to help the children join a formal education system. Other schools try to get the children comfortable with a subset of the curriculum such as language and basic maths and sciences hoping to encourage the children to learn further. Asha works with NFE centers that have been started by members of the community themselves i.e started by community groups. NFEs need various forms of support from infrastructure support, running expenses, educational resources and teachers training programs” – Asha for Education

3. HEALDS : Health Education and Alternate Development Service “Mohanur is 20kms from Namakkal and situated on the banks of the river Cauvery.” - One site visit done – by Sathyam Ravoor

4. NFE : Non Formal Education Centers • Education Center for drop-out kids : Financial reasons, Community reasons • Coverage of 25 villages • Merging back into mainstream schools • Opportunity to develop learning as a community practice in the villages. • Providing a learning space for children in which they can study individually or in groups

5. Project Proposal and Funding • Proposal requested for funding to sustain the NFE centers – Salary for teachers, Notebooks, school bags and other teaching materials • $9270 – projected amount • $5900 released in first phase

6. STATISTICS • Number of Children currently enrolled in the project : 460 • Ages of the children : 12-17 • Standards taught : 7th – 12th • Number of boys : 222 • Number of girls : 238 • Number of teachers (all female teachers) : 25 • Teacher to student ratio : 1:18 • Salary for teachers : Rs. 500 per month • School timings : 5 – 7:30PM • School days : Mon-Saturday • Overall school attendance : 99% • Medium of instruction : Tamil • Economic background of parents of the children : Agricultural laborers, vendors and seasonal workers earning $1.5 per day • Number of Panchayats the school is activated in : 25 • How far are the schools : NFE centers are in their own village • How do children get to school : by walk

7. PROGRESS • Number of drop out children enrolled : 68 • Number of children reenrolled in mainstream : 30 • Motivation in local community : The infrastructure and teachers commitment has motivated the parents to enroll their working kids. • Problems faced by the effort : Separation of primary and secondary school children to different places • Activities and achievements : Group study Prevention of child marriages Rescue of married children (Thamarai Selvi) Actively involve sports in NFEs Establishing links with local administration, Government departments and banks for student savings. • Utilization of Asha funds : Honorarium for teachers. Notebooks, bags, black board

8. Expenses and Receipts

9. FEEDBACK FOR Asha • Teachers are requesting for a increase in salary from Rs500 to Rs.1000 • The NFE center needs to extend in other vulnerable areas like Thiruchencode power loom industrial areas. Nearly 30,000 girl children under 18 years are working in power loom sectors around Thiruchencode taluk of namakkal district. A grand extension to new NFE centers in 100 villages in Thiruchencode will help rescuing those children. • Registration certificate number provided • Rescued Victims : Revathy – 13 – rescued from marriage proposal by her parents Meena – 13 – reenrolled into NFE Nithya – 14 – Orphan rescued from child marriage – enrolled in 9th standard Gobi – 14 – School dropout – renenrolled in Government high school, Musiri

10. OUR QUESTIONS • Olapalayam, manapalli, kumaripalayam, oruvandhur have two teachers each – so out of 25 panchayats 4 of them don’t have teachers? • School days given twice and there is a contradiction - one says 6 days and other says 5 days • Are there more details of these reenrolled children and drop out kids (very few photos and names shown – having told 68 drop out kids and 30 main stream reenrollment – we would prefer more details on all of these people like reason for drop out, how they got reenrolled etc) • Establishing links with government, banks etc – give more details like the bank name how does a student save etc • Exact expenditure report expected (how many bags were got at what price etc – 1,11,250.00 for bags, boards and note books is on the higher side) • How did u come up with 30,000 stats – and how are u planning to manage 100 centers (more cost and manual labor : now that you have linkages with government you should try moving this through them) • 99% attendance is on the higher end – more of a rounded figure • Contradiction in nithya’s age (shown different ages at different pages) • We would want to check the receipts for the expenditure and probably the bank statement too during site visit.

11. QUESTIONS CONTINUED…. • How was the initial salary to teachers decided? What is the qualification of the employed teachers? What do the teachers do during day time? • How is attendance measured? • How is the curriculum or learning mode modified to help drop out kids? • What is the Ratio of boys and girls in the dropout number • How is the progress of the kids coming to NFE evaluated? • How functional are the nearby government schools – we would like HEALDS to get a statistics about all the nearby government schools • How is the progress of re-enrolled kids measured? • Are the female students in the NFE center still married • How was the 5-7:30PM timing decided – We understand some of the NFE kids go to regular school in the day time what about other kids – what do they do in the day time? • How receptive are nearby schools about re-enrollment of students? • Where do the girls rescued from child marriage stay?

12. Picture Gallery….. Gobi school drop out – reenrolled into Government High School, Musiri