A New School of Thought -EducationLesson one: 54% of men and 39% of women in Jharkhand are literate. Which means nearly half of the men, and a little less than two-thirds of the women, cannot read or write.
Lesson two: It’s time to unlearn lesson one.
Nobel Laureate Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore never let his schooling interfere with his education. At KGVK, we believe in bridging the two. Because for the fledgling New India, education is the power to articulate priorities, seek necessary information and make the right choices. This is the foundation of the six Model Schools we created in Ranchi and Jamshedpur, offering quality primary education to first-time learners, including dropouts and young adults.
These schools focus on delivering improved quality of education, developing extra-curricular activities, supported by sound infrastructure, while providing financial assistance to children and encouraging parent involvement in school management.
The teaching methodology is customized, relying on:
- Demonstration of innovative solutions
- Establishment of Education Resource Groups
- Use of affordable IT systems in all subjects
- Studying the environment, science, geography, and history through field projects to build ‘life-skills’
- Development of context-specific learning material
- Reforming assessment practices
- Community capacity building
- State-level alliances to work on catalytic programs
Our overall initiatives included:
- Assisting the people of 106 villages to achieve Universal Primary Education in the next five years
- Working towards 100% enrolment of children between 6-14 years in primary schools and retaining them till the 8th grade
- Working towards 100% adult literacy for people between 15-35 years
- Promoting a knowledge society through continuous learning, knowledge sharing, peer learning and knowledge connectivity
- Working towards sincere implementation of education-related Government of India programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan or Education for All.
Key Projects
| Residential Camp School Programme |
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| Partner: Jharkhand Education Project Council, Ranchi |
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| Bridge School Programme |
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| Operational area: Gamharia, Jamshedpur, across 30 centres |
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| Mobile Computer Education Project |
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| Partner: Som Datt Foundation |
| Operational area: Ranchi |
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| Mouse on Wheels! |
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People are now used to the sight: a mobile computer lab mounted on a bus moves around the Ranchi Sadar and Namkum Block areas. Inside the mobile lab are 16 computers with Pentium-4 microprocessors and relevant furniture and fixtures for computer classes. Each four-month course teaching basic computer operations is free for needy and deserving children, especially girls. Small wonder, in the past 11 batches, 106 out of 198 students were girls! The present batch has a whopping number of students — 114! Forty-five are girls. |
Village Literacy Program
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| Operational area: 100 villages of Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Palamau, Saraikela and West Singbhum districts. |
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Round the corner!
As most free rural schools do not offer quality education, aware villagers are sending their children to rural fee-paying schools. With partners Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (South Africa) and ARK (United Kingdom), KGVK will upgrade such fee-paying schools, making affordable quality education a village reality.
» Summer camp, organized by our Education team in village Rukka under our model village development initiative. (details)
» Progress at a glance
▪ Details of Education (details)
▪ Details of project - Mobile Computer Education (details)
New Indans ..............................................................................................
Meet the New Indians
- He right clicked!
Like many other village youths, Asharfi Kumar of Tatisilwai village, felt that his bachelor’s degree in commerce was enough to cross the bridge to New India. What he didn’t realize was that without specialized education, he was just another statistic among Asia’s 300 million unemployed youth.Luckily for Asharfi, the Mobile Computer Education Project launched by KGVK in partnership with the Som Dutt Foundation, added value to his college degree by teaching him fundamental computer operations.
Now, this MS Office pro is an assistant faculty at the Mobile Computer School, getting a monthly salary of Rs. 2,300. He has right-clicked his way to New India!