Asha Trust - Project Sangamam Senji

Project Brief: Asha Chennai is working to improve the conditions and infrastructure at several government schools in Senji.
Project Type: Formal Schools (description)
Primary Focus: other (description)

Secondary Focus: other

Area: Rural
Supporting Chapter Contact: Chennai
Status: completed - requirements ended
Project Steward: Kumar Santhanam
Project Partner(s): Kumar Santhanam
Other Contacts: Paripooranam K
Project Address: , ,,,
TAMIL NADU 
Tel:
Stewarding Chapter: Chennai
Oct 2015ChennaiUSD 4678
May 2015ChennaiINR 9564

Total = $4886.4952

Asha Chennai has been working with government schools in rural areas of Tamilnadu under the Project Sangamam, Project Dream and Project Pearl. One of the teachers at the Pearl project, Saravanan, cleared TET and got a government teacher posting. He got posted at Kamagaram in Villupuram district. Since he knew what Asha does, he has been contacting us regularly for the last few months asking us to support his school also with additional teacher and materials. There were other schools in the same area that also needed additional teachers.

The scenario as regards education in this district is similar to the rest of Tamilnadu. Government schools exist but with serious deficiencies. Private (read English medium) schools are coming up and eating into the student force of the government schools. But the private schools are often worse in terms of the quality of the teaching. Asha Chennai believes the revival and strengthening of the government schooling system is essential to the implementation of any mass education initiative in India.
The schools in this area are similar to those in many other rural areas of Tamilnadu. But in addition these villages do not have any public transport. That means getting and retaining the government teachers is a problem in these schools.
The project is started in the year 2015-16. This year we will be supporting the following schools.

PUPS Kamagaram

  • No of Students: 54

  • Head Mistress: Rukhmini

  • Govt Teachers: HM + 1 (Saravanan).

  • Building: In good condition and has 3 rooms.

  • Computers: 1.

  • Projectors: 1.

  • 1st Std. 5B + 5G

  • 2nd Std 5B + 3G

  • 3rd Std 7B + 10G

  • 4th Std 4B + 5G

  • 5th Std 5B + 5G

PUPS Nallanpillaipetral

  • No of Students: 163

  • Head Master: S. Arivazhagan.

  • Govt Teachers: HM + 4.
  • Building: Really spread out with lots of classroom –more than they need. Two local village temple lands were falling in the middle of these buildings. It was serving as their playground. But they do not have any ground of their own.
  • Computers: 2. Actually the cluster resource center was also serving as their computer room. The room was very nice with a good digital projector etc. The computers were quite old but was maintained well and still operational.

  • 1st Std Tam. 9B + 7G

  • 2nd Std Tam 11B + 9G

  • 3rd Std Tam. 12B + 17G

  • 3rd Std Eng. 9B + 11G

  • 4th Std 22B + 21G

  • 5th Std 19B + 16G

PUPS Kanniyampoondi

  • No of Students: 42

  • Head Mistress: Ramani.

  • Govt Teachers: HM + 1 (Saravanan’s wife).

  • Building: In not in good condition. It has 2 rooms. There is a good bit of space in the back. They would ideally like a new building to be built in the back and the old one demolished. This will give the school a nice ground

  • Computers: None. They would like one.

  • 1st Std. 9B + 3G

  • 2nd Std 3B + 4G

  • 3rd Std 4B + 6G

  • 4th Std 3B + 2G

  • 5th Std 6B + 2G

Clearly the number of students at the school does not justify an additional teacher. One mitigating factor is that the second teachers is pregnant and will be going on her maternity leave in July. The school will be impossible to manage with just one HM. If the government doesn’t provide a temporary replacement, we will provide one for that period.