Are we really educating India?

"After my 13 years of education I still don't know how mortgage or taxes work but at least I know about the cells inside a leaf" - this is the story of every 18 year old in the country.  The Indian education system focuses more on theoretical knowledge than any kind of practical education that will actually help most of our population to get jobs in the future. Providing hard skills or understanding of practical know how will empower a very large section of students coming from a lesser-privileged background.  The point is not to do away with what is already being taught in our classrooms, the point is how to incorporate life skills and lessons within the already set and existing structure.  It is important to nurture the young minds of India with both education and the ability to be employed.

Government and Education

If we take our private and government sectors expenditures, we are spending a 4.8% of our GDP on education (even though the target set by the government was 6% , which is still a long way to go) where can we see the effects of all this investment. The tragedy is not that there is no money. The tragedy is that we do not know what to do with the money that is available; that we do not have structures through which we can channelize it.  There is no doubt that in many areas the schools have been given better infrastructure and new technology. But the lack of maintenance and basic knowledge as to how to operate such systems is absent. This causes a lot of wastage of precious resources and capital.

In order to tackle the loopholes in the education system, the following things can be undertaken. The first points of contact for any education society are the teachers. The government has a tremendous challenge of expanding the school system and at the same time putting resources in training teachers.  Across India around 25 per cent of teachers remain absent everyday. Improving the method by which the teachers teach can be a solution to education reform in India.  It is important to motivate and support the teachers so that they become quality-conscious and feel responsible for the improving the system.  One way of doing so is by identifying and implementing no or low cost teacher led practices that have the potential to make a significant positive impact on student learning. The best part about is that there is almost no cost involved in this method as it is something that is already existing within the system.

Children learning while playing 

Another thing that can be done in order to reconstruct the education system, is adding innovative life skills sessions within framework of the classroom. It is important to provide students with a set of skills that are going to help them deal with situations that may arise in the future. This will help them battle such times aptly. Students from underprivileged backgrounds, who may drop out of schools at later stage can use this very knowledge to their advantage in some way or the other. This set of skills can range from how to tackle your debts to even carpentry. The list can be vast.

One of the most important and grass root method that can be adopted to improve this system is letting the citizens of the locality taking charge of the schooling system near them. This is what we do at CACR.

Citizens Association for Child Rights-CACR , is a network of like minded citizens concerned about ensuring child rights with specific focus on ensuring good quality of education and health for all children. The network comprises of citizens who visit neighbourhood municipal schools and clinics, and participate in various programmes like School Management Committees, Computer Literacy Programme and Virtual Classroom projects, etc. and oversee the overall functioning and quality of education in municipal schools. We at CACR believe that regular interaction and discussions with the hierarchy of the Education Department and sharing of observations and suggestions with them periodically will ensure improved accountability and proper distribution of facilities and amenities for children enrolled in these schools. Citizens Association for Child Rights very strongly believes in supplementing the system and does not believe in creating parallel systems. We believe that the urban privileged public has immense power to influence and impact the lives of affected children for the better through government interface and participation.

CACR volunteers helping students get creative 

All the above will help us change the face of the education system in India.
Irrespective of all the cons in the system I believe that education is something that takes time to build-up but we should be hopeful on that count. 

-by +Meesha Gandhi is a intern with CACR , a nonprofit startup working to improve the education and health in public schools of Mumabi,India . Edited by +Richa Singh 

IMPACT : The essential component of Fundraising and Social giving

Rescue operations underway in Nepal 

          One of the worst natural catastrophes has be-fallen the hilly country of Nepal. A devastating Earthquake of 9.6 earthquake Richter scale. TV channels, newspapers, Face book, twitter, etc all all filled with imagery and story of the destruction. All our prayers and hearts go out to the injured, killed, trapped individuals and kids. At the same time our phones, emails, and news buzz about various NGOs, Government rehabilitation  schemes collecting money for the tragedy hit people of Nepal. "DONATE TO #NEPAL today!" - the messages read. Given the situation we are more than inclined to help out by giving money.

         But there are a few who are skeptical to donate.  Will my donation be used for the cause? Where will my money go? How will my donation be put to use?... are questions that occupy their minds. If you come to think of it , these people being circumspect cannot be taken as insensitivity or selfishness but their lack of trust that the money they part with will go the desired cause. So what is the cause of this doubt? It is a mix of bitter experiences in the past when people have been duped in the name of fund raising and people being kept in he dark about the impact their contributions created.

            I remember meeting a citizens group few years back when I started talking about the pathetic condition of municipal (inner city)schools in Mumbai, despite huge budgets for primary education, etc. and requested them to allow one of the "Volunteer Action Managers" from the NGO to organize a power point presentation to explain the situation and the support expected by their participation. The immediate reaction I got was  "We do not want to listen to some lecture or a presentation from these NGOs sitting in their comforts of their air conditioned offices and talking about issues related to child rights, specially when we do not see any activity or impact made at the ground" The fact is that the NGO is one of the most well known in this field for more than 25/30 years now, this came as a surprise that the impression was so negative.

Video Quantifying the improvement in English Skills :44% in 1.5 months

           It is extremely important to understand that without a track record of projects successfully implemented and budget correctly visualized, planned and utilized, it is difficult to gain trust of individual donors, corporate companies, and supporters to secure substantial funding for projects. Rather than feeling frustrated, it is a challenging time for NGOs to continue doing their good work selflessly with whatever resources available and also observe and learn from the success stories of other credible NGOs in the field, since finally giving selflessly for the cause committed should be the sole objective of any credible NGO, and a large part of the revenue generated, however small it is, should be utilized for the cause. 

Starving Children 

   Another observation is that, If we see a photograph of a starving or malnourished child or child labor or child abuse, or even statistical data on these issues, etc.evokes sympathy and does make an immediate impact on the donors, whereas NGOs who are involved in advocacy, working with various departments in creating awareness about various important schemes, facilities and amenities, etc. observing the shortcomings and network in getting like minded partners involved and help them in implementing various important projects within the framework, find it extremely difficult to get donors, since there is no direct visibility of the impact made.

    So it is essential for good and credible NGOs to not only focus on their vision of making a social impact through their efforts and projects, but also educate and enlighten their donors on how and where their donations are utilized to make a difference in the lives of underprivileged, which offers a feel-good factor to the donors and helps in creating LOYAL DONORS...

     We at CACR don't ask our donors to give us money based on sympathy or pity by using the plight of children to evoke emotions but we ask our donors to see the work we do. Projects we undertake and impact we create only then they should give us their  hard earned money and precious time. You can see the projects we have done impacted we have created in our video and impact stories

At Donate for Good - our 1st fund raiser we did just that. We made a short Video film and let the audience hear from all stakeholders  to see for themselves the improvement we have made in schools - infrastructure,  midday meal, e-learning, computer literacy, dance training, health and hygiene etc. 

Screenshot the the CACR IMPACT Video shown during the fund raiser

This will tell them precisely how their donations will be utilized. Fundraising for any cause is challenging and takes patience but communication of your objectives and impact are key to connecting with the right people. 

~by  +Nitin Wadhwani , Founder Director CACR ; Edited by +Richa Singh , CACR Core team member

CACR is a start up non-profit working to improve the education and healthcare in public schools of India

Website- www.ngocacr.com  

Face book -https://www.facebook.com/CitizensAssociationForChildRights
Photos are for representation purposes only