Asha Seattle Site Visit Report

Asha Seattle Site Visit Report

Project : Aarti School Computer Lab

Location : Kadapa, India

Site visit done by : Sudha Reddy

Site visit date : Dec 3rd, 2015

Before the site visit:

A month before visiting India, I requested price quotations from few different solution providers for computers, internet and projector. I finalized an option, talked to the vendor and requested them to have the set of the computers finished by November 24th, 2015.

I let Sandhya Puchalapall, the founder of Aarti Home know that I will be visiting Aarti School in Kadapa a month before I went there. The visit got postponed due to some family emergency and I ended up coming a week later than the original planned date of November 24th, 2015.

Day before:

The day before the site visit, I called Sandhya Puchalapalli to confirm the timing of my arrival. She confirmed that she will be sending me a vehicle to pick me up early in the morning to first visit her home and then later to the school site.

Day of the Site visit:

I arrived in Kadapa at 4.30am by bus from Hyderabad. I was picked up from the bus stop and after some rest and after breakfast went to visit the school at 10am. It was a 15minute ride from Sandhya’s home to the site and once at the site, I ended up meeting the headmistress, office coordinators and most of the staff at the school. I ended up staying at the site till 5pm and ended up talking to several different staff members about the facilities.

Quick tour and facilities:

As soon as we reached Aarti School, I was first introduced to the chairman of the school and the headmistress. For the next hour, we talked about the school, its facilities, no of teachers, schedules and the plan going forward.

Nancy madam, who was the headmistress of the school then walked through the whole school. There was the main school office room where the headmistress sat and separate room for teachers. The school was on 3 floors and each of the classes from LKG to 10th class had a room assigned to them.

There were separate rooms for a library, biology lab, chemistry and physical labs. The computer room was a much larger room but was closed. The projector room also much larger room was used for special events.

The school had some open area where the kids could gather for assembly and also play during breaks and lunch times.

All the classrooms had about 15-25 students and pretty crowded. The teacher and students had separate toilet facilities.

The labs were always locked unless accompanied by a teacher and the main entrance to school was locked after 9am till 5pm. Only exception was games periods where students were taken to the adjacent municipal grounds to play sports accompanied by the games teacher.

After that I met with the computer technician who was installing the computers to make sure the lab will be fully set up by the next day.

Initial Impression:

The school building is a huge white building without any big signs to show that it’s a school. The major sign was the school bus, the school auto and a whole of bunch kids going into the school.

As soon as I entered the school, I saw a bunch of kids in school uniform playing in the playground area bubbling with energy. Having seen the universities and schools in US, the playground and school itself felt cramped. The energy of the kids was contagious though.

Who were there at the school?

Kids – 290 kids from kindergarden to 10th grade
18 teachers (4 part time)
Head mistress
Chairman
2 Office staff
5 house keeping (gateman, 3 cleaning ladies, driver)

Watching teachers help the kids:

A lot of the teachers don’t speak in English although it is an English medium school. They use the blackboard a lot and keep writing things that students have to note in their books. There are not many discussions within the class. There is no confirmation of whether the students understood the topic. It was a one-way street with always the teachers talking.

With the exception of the English teacher who doesn’t give students homework, all the other teachers give students hundreds of pages of homework to write at home. None of this homework seemed to use the student’s ability to think.

Each of the kids has unique problems. Some problems include inability to speak, inability to concentrate/learn/read/write etc but with the exception of lower class students below 3rd grade, teachers didn’t seem to pay attention to the struggling students.

I was disheartened to watch the kids writing in their notebooks all day without ever understanding what they are writing.

Watching kid use the facilities:

After my short tour of the school, I observed the students for the rest of the day. Lower class kids are given few breaks to play but all the higher class students are supposed to be in classes from 9-5pm with an hour lunch break.

Chat with founder:

Sandhya Aunty, the founder is the most inspiration woman I have met in my life. She is extremely passionate about the cause. She is highly educated and is the primary foundation of the organization. She is a true leader that can inspire crowds to follow her.

The chat with her about the school opened my eyes so many new possibilities. Within a span of an hour, she came up with tons of brilliant ideas, some that are being held back because of lack of funding. She does every possible thing in her control to make the school as best as possible.

The kids love her and at the same time always trying to prove themselves to her.

Feedback to Aarti School:

Here is some feedback that I provided to Aarti home. After watching the organization for almost 3 weeks, here is my feedback:

1.  Concept Oriented Teaching: Focus on teaching kid’s concepts and not just finishing the curriculum. Students and teachers understanding of the concepts is foundational and if it can be done in innovative ways, students will grasp it much faster

2.  English skills: Although its an English medium school, not many of the teachers or students could speak in English

3.  Limited time for games and sports: Although there is a stadium in front of the school, in-lieu of finishing the curriculum students are rarely allowed to do extra curricular activities. Sports and games sharpen the minds and these need to be encouraged

4.  Library and other extracurricular: Although there is a library in the school, the books in the library are not perfect for children. There are a variety of novels that are suitable for young adults. The few books that are available for children are rarely used. Librarian needs to generate interest in students to explore and read books

5.  Cramped classrooms: The classrooms were cramped

6.  Lab usage and practical projects: Students need to be encouraged to learn concept through lab work. Teachers take the kids to the lab but rarely let them touch anything

7.  Study hours: Students need to sit through an entire day of classes and are required to spend few more hours in the evening as study hours. Children need to have free time to think and rather be encouraged to do projects at home to learn the concepts rather than spend more time at school in front of books.

8.  Several students struggle in classes. Children needing additional help should be targeted and teachers need to help them catch up with rest of the class.

9.  The student teacher ratio is 20: 1, which is probably a bit high

10.  Quality of teachers is very important but given the rural environment, the teacher’s exposure is limited and the quality is not very high.

How we can help them:

Continued funding will definitely help the organization in reaching its goals.

If there is also a possibility for teachers from US to stay longer term in the organization to train the teachers that would help as well.

What we can learn from Aarti School

Aarti School is part of the Vijay foundation trust umbrella that is doing amazing work with orphan kids, underprivileged children and women in Kadapa. The founder is a well educated, highly passionate woman that keeps working towards betterment of society in every possible way. Her dedication and hardwork are seen through each and every part of the organization. Her vision is quite beautiful and Aarti school supported that vision by providing education to not only the orphans but several under privileged surrounding Kadapa.

Given the rural location, its still a challenge to get quality teachers and this is currently the organization’s biggest challenge. As part of my work at Aarti school, I trained all the teachers to use computer resources to find means to innovatively educate the children. The teachers themselves are very committed to learning and are willing to learn new methods of teaching.

Hoping that in the next year or so, with the usage of Khan academy, you tube videos – the organization will reach its goal of being one of the top schools in Kadapa to get quality education.

Overall Rating:

I am extremely impressed with the school’s efforts in bringing education to the underprivileged children. I am inspired by the founder and her vision of gender equality and quality education. Even though, the school has some way to go I don’t doubt that with the right guidance and funds, this will be one of the top schools in Kadapa.

Organization & its mission, short and long-term goals

Two-thirds of the population of Kadapa district resides in rural areas. These areas lack infrastructure to quality education. This results in a significant deficiency in the education at the school and college level. Thus creating a knowledge gap that subsequently manifests in the job market, as most career opportunities today require good communication skills and basic computer literacy, at the minimum. Aarti school’s goal is to bridge the gap by improving the quality of education to kids starting from their infancy and thus eventually improving the employability of the people in rural communities.

Perception of organization, facilities, and teachers

The facilities were adequate – they can be improved. Children can be provided with more innovate means of learning, project based learning, computer resources and playing areas.

More teachers are needed and getting high quality teachers who can speak in English would be great.

Organization statistics

Number of kids – 300
Number of teachers – 18

Annual budget – around 4-6 Lakhs

Perception from children's point of view

The children are also inspired by the vision of the organization. They are very smart and eager to grasp anything taught to them. I did a small competition for them to build presentations around the organization’s mission and was amazed at how dedicated they feel towards the cause and the ideas they came up with to solve some of the social issues surrounding their society. Although several had difficulty speaking in English, when asked them to do the same in their native language they were brilliant.