Let's Connect For A Cause

In 2008, after my retirement, I nursed my mother for 2 years. I think it is this effort that led me to my new career in social work. In July 2013, I got two projects added to the two that I already had. A total of four, which I thought I could do justice to. Both these new projects were courtesy my Indian Institute of Technology (IITB) 1969 classmate and well known RTI activist Shailesh Gandhi. One of the projects was about voluntarily teaching computer literacy (called CLP) to the MCGM's (inner city) Primary School students.

The group of volunteers at CACR-Citizens Association for Child Rights was functioning vibrantly, interacting with the MCGM Schools. Its credo was to get the MCGM School System to work for itself and hand hold till this happens. This group took up Shailesh's initiative and started teaching CLP in a few schools. His original concept called for volunteer teachers to be able to teach in a neighbourhood school two hours per week. And though I live in Mahim in the ( G-North) Ward, I and my wife Archana were both willing to go to Bandra (W) to another ward to teach and that is how we ended up getting the Petit school near Bhabha Hospital assigned to us.

I have spent my entire career in Computer Science and Information Technology both in Academics and Industry. Yet teaching CLP to primary school children was an entire new cup of tea. When I began to teach, I stepped in to the world of inner-city primary schools (and the associated strata of society) for the first time. The spacious building with a computer room of its own, impressed me as more than adequate infrastructure for any school. Getting to know the knowledge level of 4^thStd students (our target group) took some time. One had to try out variations to come to terms with various temperaments – some disciplined ones, some bullies, some lacking in major ways to the extent they could not read the English alphabet which is a must for CLP to be successful.

At that stage Petit school had only 5 desktop computers, which was woefully inadequate to handle a class of 30 students. We CACR members, the school and the Administrative Officer AO pursued this matter and by December we had 5 additional desktops added which eased the situation to some extent.

These are modern desktops from leading international vendors with an on site warranty that extends to 2016. They are all installed with Windows7. The only shortfall is they are not networked into a local area network (LAN) nor are they connected to Internet.

I had been a professor of Computer Science once and had authored drafts of two textbooks. I was again inspired to write a CLP textbook of sorts for the current set of students. I wrote it in parts as I progressed with teaching CLP. I was optimistic and felt that the internet is an integral part of computer literacy in current times and included 4 lessons in that area too.

By December I began to realise that the students' progress was far less than expected or desired. Our lack of adequate voluntary teachers was also forcing us into less than one session per week for each standard and thus the pace of teaching was irregular and very slow. By this time I had begun to teach CLP at Dharavi Transit Camp (DTC) school too. One major difference was that DTC had a full time (FT) CLP teacher. He could not initially teach CLP. But he learned as I began to teach. Eventually, he took over and taught all the standards of the school using a set weekly time table.

In this process two goals were accomplished. I trained a teacher who could cover a much larger set of the student population (without the dependency on voluntary teachers). It also meant that BMC teachers who are paid to teach were now doing their work rather than depend on NGOs or voluntary teachers to do their work. I was convinced that this is the way to go forward. I resolved that I will not teach CLP directly in the academic year 14-15 but will train anyone who is assigned to be a Full Time FT CLP teacher. I have been pursuing this idea with BMC officials urging them to assign a FT CLP teacher but so far it has not borne adequate results.

By the time I began at DTC I had begun to revise the first version of my own CLP textbook (of 25 pages). I dropped the internet lessons and improved the remaining ones. The resulting second version was much better and could be taught more easily.I am happy to report that by end of March when the MCGM schools were about to close (early due to national elections) the students at both Petit and DTC were able to reach a computer literacy level which I would consider satisfactory.

Much more practice would still be required for the students to be able to work without any help and gain speed but the essentials of typing and editing was in. We also felt that these students need to be taught English. We chose the BCPT's eTeach material developed by Tata Interactive and began teaching itto the same target group of 4th to 7th standards. This was done mostly by my wife Archana.

CACR continued to grow rapidly to become a robust non-profit. We even celebrated our first birthday in style. CACR now has partnered with many complementary NGOs and institutions who could enrich the lives of BMC primary students. What is remarkable about CACR and what sets it apart is its resolve to get the MCGM School System to work for itself and also deliver quality education. If it keeps to this resolve I am sure that in the next few years it will bring a significant change not only in the MCGM’s Primary Education System but equally important improve the quality of teaching that is imparted. That in turn should turn the tide of parents back to the MCGM schools and enable talented students from these strata to avail of free education and rise to whatever they are capable of in life.

Teaching/hand holding is only a small part of CACR. Pressing on BMC educational hierarchy, to resolve school deficiencies, participation in SMCs to educate parents on their rights under RTE, monitoring schools on many parameters and much more, comes under CACR’s scope.

Much work remains to be done and the MCGM behemoth moves very slowly. But it is not cast in stone and we think it has moved a little but perceptibly in the last year or so that we have been dealing with it. We hope to move this mountain to a desired position so that the immense funds that the citizens of Mumbai contribute (Rs 2,660 crores per year!) are used to graduate able citizens of tomorrow.

~Dr. S. Wagle
This is the third article in the series of volunteer journey's with CACR on our first anniversary
The first article can be read HERE

Ngo CACR is a educational start-up working to improve the quality of education in inner city schools of Mumbai

As a retired Engineer and Finance professional, residing in Santacruz West,Mumbai I volunteered for the last three years, to improve the quality of education in Municipal {inner city} Schools of the H-West Ward. Since then I have been a part of Citizens Association for Child Rights (CACR) ,a citizen's initiative, trying my best, to help improve conditions in these Municipal schools. Our group has covered nearly 40 schools, largely the Primary and Upper Primary sections in Marathi, English, Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada (8 Indian languages) medium schools.

Unfortunately, there are very few Municipal Secondary schools in this ward (and Mumbai as a whole), owing to which students who want to pursue education beyond Elementary level (under RTE post-Std VII) are either forced to look for expensive options or are compelled to forgo their formal education.

My role is to coordinate CACR volunteers and help improve, to the extent possible, education related activities in the schools of our Ward.

As per the latest data available, there are less than 3.5 lac students in Municipal Schools in Mumbai. Over the last few years, despite increasing budgets, there has been a marked decline in student enrollment. To mitigate this, our focus today has been largely to improve their Spoken English skills and impart Basic Computer skills. These two facets are considered critical and expected to greatly improve employment opportunities. With this in mind, the effort has been to procure relevant material through tie-ups and impart the information to as many students as possible.

Collaborations have been made with the Bombay Community Public Trust (BCPT) and Tata Interactive Systems for Spoken English, and IIT Bombay (IIT B) for Basic Computer skills - multi lingual ‘Spoken Tutorial’ videos developed by IIT B 'with support from the Human Resource Development -HRD Ministry of the Govt. of India'

CACR’s effort towards fuller / more complete the implementation of the Virtual Class Rooms (VCR), in quite a few schools has encouraged favourable developments in these schools.The number of schools covered by the VCR project will progressively increase from the present coverage of 480, including 360 Primary schools. This is expected to give a great boost / thrust to the reach of CACR’s efforts.

The introduction of Semi-English by the MCGM in conjunction with British Council , right from Std. I, is likely to help improve enrollment in the near future. CACR is, in its own way, making a conscious effort to make the parents of enrolled students aware of the facilities available in these schools and trying to publicise the rights and entitlements of the students. Over the next few years, the objective is to teach Mathematics and Science, to students of all mediums of instruction, in English.

Mr.Mirchandani and other other CACR members interacting with students & parents at a community centre

As a CACR volunteer, I have been on the School Management Committee of the Laxmi Nagar school, near Khar Gymkhana, Khar W, closely monitoring its progress. Despite our efforts at improving enrollments, the declining trend is yet to be arrested. Partly it is the growing aspirations of the parents to enroll their children in English medium schools. Most importantly, the quality of education imparted in these schools needs substantial improvement.

If in the Metros, conditions of these schools are substantially below expectations, then the position in the interiors of Maharashtra State would be unimaginable. The available facilities are not being optimally utilised for the benefit of the children attending these schools.

The running of these schools needs to be closely monitored. The approach is to ‘hand hold’ and in the process strengthen the hands of MCGM in this gigantic task. The focus is to make the system work and link Authority with Accountability.

Efforts are always on strengthen the pool of CACR volunteers to increase the reach.So come and join us in our endeavour

-Mr. M. Mirchandani, CACR.

This is the second article in the series of volunteer journey's with CACR on our first anniversary
The first article can be read HERE