HEALDS : NON-FORMAL EDUCATION CENTERS

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HEALDS NON-FORMAL EDUCATION CENTERS

• Mohanur, Namakkal District, Tamilnadu, Chennai
• Half Yearly Report
• - Koussalya Balasubramanian

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NFE Centers

• NFE centers are typically created for children
  who are unable to attend an entire day of school.
  Often these centers serve as a stepping stone to
  more formal education. NFEs are, as their name
  implies allow non-formal enrollment ? children
  can join irrespective of their age. Some NFEs
  tend to be non-formal in content ? they can
  follow varying curriculums. There are bridge
  schools that offer several years of curriculum in
  a condensed manner to help the children join a
  formal education system. Other schools try to get
  the children comfortable with a subset of the
  curriculum such as language and basic maths and
  sciences hoping to encourage the children to
  learn further. Asha works with NFE centers that
  have been started by members of the community
  themselves i.e started by community groups. NFEs
  need various forms of support from infrastructure
  support, running expenses, educational resources
  and teachers training programs
• Asha for Education

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HEALDS Health Education and Alternate
Development Service
Mohanur is 20kms from Namakkal and situated on
the banks of the river Cauvery. - One site visit
done by Sathyam Ravoor
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NFE Non Formal Education Centers

• Education Center for drop-out kids Financial
  reasons, Community reasons
• Coverage of 25 villages
• Merging back into mainstream schools
• Opportunity to develop learning as a community
  practice in the villages.
• Providing a learning space for children in which
  they can study individually or in groups

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Project Proposal and Funding

• Proposal requested for funding to sustain the NFE
  centers Salary for teachers, Notebooks, school
  bags and other teaching materials
• 9270 projected amount
• 5900 released in first phase

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STATISTICS

• Number of Children currently enrolled in the
  project 460
• Ages of the children 12-17
• Standards taught 7th 12th
• Number of boys 222
• Number of girls 238
• Number of teachers (all female teachers) 25
• Teacher to student ratio 118
• Salary for teachers Rs. 500 per month
• School timings 5 730PM
• School days Mon-Saturday
• Overall school attendance 99
• Medium of instruction Tamil
• Economic background of parents of the children
  Agricultural laborers, vendors and seasonal
  workers earning 1.5 per day
• Number of Panchayats the school is activated in
  25
• How far are the schools NFE centers are in
  their own village
• How do children get to school by walk

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PROGRESS

• Number of drop out children enrolled 68
• Number of children reenrolled in mainstream 30
• Motivation in local community The
  infrastructure and teachers commitment has
  motivated the parents to enroll their
  working kids.
• Problems faced by the effort Separation of
  primary and secondary school children to
  different places
• Activities and achievements
• Group study
• Prevention of child marriages
• Rescue of married children (Thamarai Selvi)
• Actively involve sports in NFEs
• Establishing links with local administration,
  Government departments and banks for student
  savings.
• Utilization of Asha funds
• Honorarium for teachers.
• Notebooks, bags, black board

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Expenses and Receipts
Receipts Amount (Rs) Payments and Balance Amount (Rs)
Cash at Bank 816.00 Teachers Salary 75000.00
Grant from Asha for Education 2,58,921.50 Board, Bags and note books 1,11,250.00
Hand Loans 60,921.00 Cultural and Sport meet 1,530.00
HEALDS Contribution 3,859.00 Bank Charges 11.00
Bank Interest 15.00 Cash at Bank 75,821.50
Repayment of hand loans 60,920.00
Total 3,24,532.50 Total 3,24,532.50
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FEEDBACK FOR Asha

• Teachers are requesting for a increase in salary
  from Rs500 to Rs.1000
• The NFE center needs to extend in other
  vulnerable areas like Thiruchencode power loom
  industrial areas. Nearly 30,000 girl children
  under 18 years are working in power loom sectors
  around Thiruchencode taluk of namakkal district.
  A grand extension to new NFE centers in 100
  villages in Thiruchencode will help rescuing
  those children.
• Registration certificate number provided
• Rescued Victims
• Revathy 13 rescued from marriage proposal by
  her parents
• Meena 13 reenrolled into NFE
• Nithya 14 Orphan rescued from child marriage
  enrolled in 9th standard
• Gobi 14 School dropout renenrolled in
  Government high school, Musiri

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OUR QUESTIONS

• Olapalayam, manapalli, kumaripalayam, oruvandhur
  have two teachers each so out of 25 panchayats
  4 of them dont have teachers?
• School days given twice and there is a
  contradiction - one says 6 days and other says 5
  days
• Are there more details of these reenrolled
  children and drop out kids (very few photos and
  names shown having told 68 drop out kids and 30
  main stream reenrollment we would prefer more
  details on all of these people like reason for
  drop out, how they got reenrolled etc)
• Establishing links with government, banks etc
  give more details like the bank name how does a
  student save etc
• Exact expenditure report expected (how many bags
  were got at what price etc 1,11,250.00 for
  bags, boards and note books is on the higher
  side)
• How did u come up with 30,000 stats and how are
  u planning to manage 100 centers (more cost and
  manual labor now that you have linkages with
  government you should try moving this through
  them)
• 99 attendance is on the higher end more of a
  rounded figure
• Contradiction in nithyas age (shown different
  ages at different pages)
• We would want to check the receipts for the
  expenditure and probably the bank statement too
  during site visit.

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QUESTIONS CONTINUED.

• How was the initial salary to teachers decided?
  What is the qualification of the employed
  teachers? What do the teachers do during day
  time?
• How is attendance measured?
• How is the curriculum or learning mode modified
  to help drop out kids?
• What is the Ratio of boys and girls in the
  dropout number
• How is the progress of the kids coming to NFE
  evaluated?
• How functional are the nearby government schools
  we would like HEALDS to get a statistics about
  all the nearby government schools
• How is the progress of re-enrolled kids measured?
• Are the female students in the NFE center still
  married
• How was the 5-730PM timing decided We
  understand some of the NFE kids go to regular
  school in the day time what about other kids
  what do they do in the day time?
• How receptive are nearby schools about
  re-enrollment of students?
• Where do the girls rescued from child marriage
  stay?

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Picture Gallery..
Gobi school drop out reenrolled into Government
High School, Musiri