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VIVEKA TRIBAL CENTRE FOR LEARNING

A UNIT OF SWAMI VIVEKANANDA YOUTH MOVEMENT


Swami VIVEKANANDA YOUTH MOVEMENT

Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning, Hosahalli

REPORT FROM the Month of April 2015 to june 2015

Goal: Quality Education, focusing on values, literacy, numeracyand appropriate vocational training through joyful, experiential and child centered learning processes for children in H.D.Kote taluk in the age group of 6 to15, particularly girls.

Location:

Hosahalli,Beeramballi post, Heggadadevanakote taluk

Mysore district - 571116, Karnataka state.

Project Beneficiaries: All tribal colonies of H.D.Kote Taluk

Support from TITAN:

Target:117High School children for the year 2015-16, all are belonging to Indigenous forest based tribal groups.

Objective:

The objectives of this collaborative intervention of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement and TITAN Co Ltd. are as below-

  • Provide quality and value based education from classes I to X adopting child-centric, joyful, and experiential learning processes.
  • Facilitate holistic development of children covering their social, emotional, physical and psychological needs by additional soft skill training.
  • Provide pre-vocational training in electrical, mechanical and agriculture to the students of Classes VI to X.
  • Counsel, provide career guidance and support for students during and after passing their class X.

All the above are the existing functions ofViveka Tribal Centre for learning, at Hosahalli, Beeramballli Post, HD KoteTaluk, Mysore District, Karnataka.

A Brief Summary: This is a narrative report of various activities conducted by Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning (VTCL) from April to June 2015. The report briefly describes about activities related to

  • School’s New Admission
  • Cultural Programs
  • Celebrations
  • Exposure visits
  • Guest’s Talk
  • Training for Teachers
  • Meetings etc.

Academic yearof VTCL starts from May 25th2015 to April 10th 2016. This year an Admission committee was formed for the purpose of new admission to fillup the vacant seats. As a strategy, theCommittee decidedto give seats for other ST Category students to have cross learning, which will help in socializing, improve expression skills etc. The new admission was 109 out of which 95was in Primary and 14 was in High School. (enclosed annexure 1- Breakup of the school).

Academics:

S.S.L.C examinations for the year 2014-15 wereheld from 30th of March to 13th ofApril 2015. 34 out of 39 students appeared for the exams. Remaining whowere below 75% of attendance was not eligible to appear for exams this year.For such cases, the opportunity is extended from school to appear for exams next year. In the month of May, results were announced and this year we got 76% result. Ms.Sunitha, topped in the exam scoring67 %.( enclosed annexure 2 – 10thstd result analysis).

Meeting with parents was arranged on the 5thof April before summer vacation. Parents were oriented about their child’s overall performance during the entire year. 10th standard students and their parents were oriented about the higher studies and career options. This meeting gave the parents clarity about their children’s status in education. The class teacher gave each parent the feedback about their children’s annual academic performance. Parents were informed to supervise the holiday homework.The details of academic performance is enclosed. (enclosedannexure 3 – 1st to 9thstdof 2013 &2014).

Summer vacation has announced for the school in the month of April and May.

By the end of April, workshop for teachers regarding Vision Building exercise for the upcoming year was done under the guidance of Mr. Ramkumar and presented in front of CEO.Atheme based workshop with VSOE teachers was also done by the end of May.

Higher Education support

We started a special coaching class on the 4th for soft skills like spoken English, aptitude and reasoning, mathematical skills etc. for SSLC graduated students. The training consisted of classes by internal and external resource persons for specific subjects. This training is initiated in terms of enhancing the students who are joining colleges in the main cities for their further studies. The main goal of this theme is to strengthen the capacity of students to learn adaptability and make them capable of handling situations in different environments.

Out of 27 students who passed SSLC,24 of them are perusing their higher education. Titan has given hand-holding support to them. 30 Alumni students have applied for JOC. In coming days, we are planning to extend our works. (Enclosed annexure 4 – details of higher education students of 2013 & 2014 batch):

/ Case Study
Basappaof class 10th, belongs to JenuKuruba category which is considered as a primitive tribal community in the society, being a boy from the family which is backward in socio economic condition, this student was not regular to school during 8th and 9th standard, the reason behind this is the nature of his community which is basically of shy nature and does not wish to mingle with others, still they are intelligent enough in their thoughts.The migration of this community is also high.
Knowing the nature of his community, our teachers regularly did follow up and counseling and special coaching according to his mind set.By the time he came to SSLC his academic performance and regularity in attendance improved. Finally, he finished his SSLC with second class.
Now the boy is studying in 1st PUC with Commerce specialization at KautilyaVidyalaya, Mysore with the financial support of institution. All the care and guidance has been given by the institution through regular counseling and performance review including moral support. It is the happiest thing that the student is joyfully learning and showing self-interest in his studies.The boy is now leaving behind the shy nature and is getting adapted to city life and getting along with different social environment.

June Month activities:

Anecdote
In order to check the hunger and thirst for education in community, this time it was decided not to visit haadies for orientation of parents to admit their children. It is pleasure to inform that 25 years of tentative work made the dream come true, that the admission rush remains same as before. Also in order to bring social convergence, chance for other ST children has given to study in this school, this has improved the adaptability of tribal children and increased self-learning ability.

Following the monthly work, tentative timetable was prepared.Learning materials and Uniforms were purchased and distributed for the students of all class.Campus Duties were assigned to the teachers.

The Major Challenge which was resolved
A program on Skype - Study center for children was launched & sponsored by a Local NGO with the support of SVYM. For that, Internet connectivity was very crucial so to get consistentconnectivity, an external expert team from Wynaad came to our place and supported by setting up of radio frequency tower to connect from VMH,Saraguron 24 June, 2015.

For high bandwidth Internet facility of 8mbps will be provided soon from our Organisation. A negotiation is carried out with BSNL and hope very soon we will get high-speed internet facility.

Second session of theme based curriculum workshop was held on 26thJune to facilitate the teachers to plan the lessons based on a theme emerged during the discussion. Teachers from class 1 to 10 were guided by Mr. Ram Kumar, Education Coordinator, in the presence of Head of Institution Based Education Programs Miss. Malathi. H. D.

  1. Visits:

Reena and Kariappa of class 10th and 9th respectively attend SPICMACAY International Convention held in IIT Mumbai from 30th May to 6th June. The entire program was on classical and folk mainly on music, dance, and tribal art forms. These students were able to participate actively in all the programs and got insights on Indian Art culture, especially of various tribal art forms. This program was supported by Titan company ltd.
  1. Celebrations:

As there was a summer vacation during April, May and June there was no such celebrations done.

  1. Guest/ Resource Person Visits:

Ms.SmithaAgarwal, Head Education CSR of Tata Steel visited the school on the 23rd of April month. The purpose of this visit was to understand the Tribal Education given in VTCL. Miss.Malathi shared her experiences and best practices, innovationdone since last 25 years. The guest also observed the process and the ongoing programs. She interacted with 10thstd students and advised to concentrate on higher studiesand future plans.

On 13th of June, Students from Cornell University, Alleghany University, Pennsylvia and IOWA University, IOWA did their internship in different units of SVYM for 4 weeks. Cornell University students Alexandra worked in designing website for VTCL and Katie helped in documentation of the school activities and Tara prepared manual for VTTRC. During the project work, the students gained insights about our programs. /
Co-Curriculum:
Summer camp was conducted from 2nd April to 4thApril 2015. 73 students of VivekaSchool Of Excellence, Saragur along with 23 staff and 8 resource persons had participated in the camp. Objectives of this camp were to develop self-confidence, soft skills, thinking ability and adaptability of the students. Every year this camp iscontinuously supported by Rotary, Bangalore with the coordination of Mr.Prakash and Mr.ShekarBabu. Ms.MeenaKumari taught mental math to students, which helped them to improve the calculations in Mathematics. /
IBT - Electrical and Computer Network project
Apart from the regular curriculum our children in Viveka Tribal Centre for Learning are exposed to different skill based training with the innovation of creative ideas to make children understand the subject experiencing the real time objects and learning things practically. The dream comes true with the institutionalizing of Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) unit in the campus.(Annexure 5 - IBT project.).

  1. Training for Teachers:

Aworkshop on Keizen – Lean Management on 24th April 2015 at V- Lead Mysore.Team leader of Tribal School and Head masters participated in the workshop.
There was a training on excel spread sheet for the employees on 25thApril 2015 on handling data of different departments, IBT coordinator Dushyanth and Computer teacher Kendagannaswamy represented from VTCL. /
By 12th of May month Mrs.Vidya, a resource person, who is a freelancer, joined us for training in teaching English and designing English Curriculum to the school. Titan sponsors this project. The duration of this project is for 80 days, which is spread over 10 months. Every month she comes for 10 days, facilitates the english classes of 1st to 10th std, and mentors english teachers in designing creative lesson plan, classroom management, to prepare worksheets, learning aids etc.
Hostel counselor Mr. Mahesh K underwent 8 days of First Aid Training in VMH Saragur.2 teachers were trained to teach special children.
Second session of Mrs. Vidya classes commenced from 12thof June month for ten days in which both students and teachers participated actively.
  1. Staff Meetings:

Individual annual review from 28thMarch to 4thApril 2015, was done for the staff of VTCL. It was basically on their achievements, goal and plans for the next academic year. Performance of the teachers was appreciated. This review meeting is being held every year, which also gives personal space with management to share their problems, ideas and suggestions for improvement. /
The staff of VTCL gave the presentation on the 14th of April to CEO Dr. M. A. Balasubramanya about the progress of school and goal for coming year. C.E.O gave his suggestions in improving the quality of teaching, inspired all to work towards the overall development of children and expressed his gratitude towards everyone’s hard work.
Staff meeting and tribal coordination meeting at Sargur was held on 16thJune. Mr. Madappa, staff of VTCL coordinated the meeting, Harini, a HR assistant, oriented the thoughts of Swami Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi. Mr. Dushyanthpresented different schemes offered for Tribal community from Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
Tribal community meeting was held on 17th at the school to clarify the doubts of parents regarding school and its decisions for coming year.
  1. Workshops:

By the end of May month, a workshop on theme-based curriculum was held for two days for both VSOE and VTCL teachers. The main concepts were discussed and workshop was done under the guidance of Mr. Ramkumar. There will be continuous follow up in coming days to understand more intensely about this approach in theme-based teaching. /
Second session of theme based curriculum workshop was held on 26thJune to facilitate the teachers to plan the lessons based on a theme emerged during the discussion. Teachers from class 1 to 10 were guided by Mr. Ram Kumar, Education Coordinator, in the presence of Team Leader of Tribal School Miss. Malathi. H. D. /

The above-mentionedevents are theworks carried out in the first three monthsin VTCL.

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