There are some who complain about the quality of government schools, and others who decide to pitch in to help improve them.
Residents in some city neighbourhoods fit in the latter category. They are adopting government schools in their locality by not only helping to revamp them, but also serving as volunteer teachers.
Some proactive residents in Whitefield decided to adopt the Ramagondanahalli government higher primary school in 2008. The group — Whitefield Ready — initially wanted to do “something good” in their neighbourhood and decided to spend a few hours every week to teach English to the students. But, while teaching, they stumbled upon the dismal condition of the school and wanted to chip in to help students access a better quality of education.
They started with five volunteers in 2007, and now they have grown to 57. These volunteers do not focus on the syllabus in the textbook, but find novel ways to help students by providing supplementary classes in English and maths for a few hours a week that are usually earmarked for classes like SUPW that usually go unused. From one school they have extended their support to five more in the same locality, Sumedha Rao, a member of the team, said.
The group has also mobilised funds to build toilets and hired janitors to maintain the toilets. Over the years, they have built various other infrastructure through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
The students too acknowledge the efforts of these volunteers. One of the students from the Ramagondanahalli government school, who is now in class 10, said the volunteers’ passion to teach gets students interested in the subjects. “They have also been able to teach us the importance of English,” she said.
Near Kanakapura road, a few residents of Mantri Tranquil, an apartment complex, registered themselves under the banner of Tranquil Charitable Foundation (TCF) and adopted a government school about two kilometres from their apartment in 2009.
Sriram Visvanathan, one of the trustees of the foundation, said they decided to start volunteering at the Gubbalala Higher Primary School. But they found that the building was dilapidated, the toilets were unusable and the students’ learning levels were not up to the mark. There were only two teachers for over 200 students.
They then decided to form a trust and persuade the government to rebuild the school at another location. After the school was ready, they used their contacts to mobilise funds to procure teaching aids and also recruited a separate set of teachers to assist the existing teachers, who were appointed by the Department of Public Instruction.
They have also set in place a system to provide remedial teaching to students. Those who are unable to achieve grade-wise competency in certain subjects are made to attend sessions led by volunteers who give them personal attention.
Srinivas Narayanaswamy, managing trustee of TCF, said, “It is good if a community adopts a government school in their locality. It is not very difficult; it’s a simple task; providing two teachers/volunteers to a school is more than enough to change the lives of students. There are qualified people who are looking to do good and they just need an outlet or an opportunity. From my experience, it is both ways, students need the volunteers as much as the volunteers need the students.”