INTRODUCTION
Education is prime essential for the social development of any human being. A child who get detach from school in his or her primary school not able to cover this gap in further stage of life. An out of school child when grows up remain as uneducated forever. It is more important to control the dropping out of children especially at the primary stage. The reasons for children getting irregular and drop out from school could be both social and psychological. The social factors could be low income of family, lack of awareness of family, community factor and many other similar reasons. The psychological factors are lack of interest of child, incompetency in learning etc. (The proper study is required in this regard)
Even though India has achieved almost 100 per cent access to school for its children at the primary level, it has a high 40 per cent drop-out rate at the elementary level, (according to India Today)
The project has been prepared to control the drop out in education at primary level and also to bring those children to school who are deprived of it. The project component has been planned to address the different factor of discontinuity in education.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
| Title of the Project | ‘Project for Bringing drop outs and other deprived children into primary school at Kolkata City. |
| Objectives | · Bring drop out child back in school
· Enroll the children in school who have never been school · Support to student who belongs to ultra-poor family · Support of tuition / extra class after school hours for the participant children |
| Beneficiary detail | 1000 Children from 20 Primary school will be selected as Participants children.
The Participants children will be drop outs or deprived children and from the Ultra-poor family. |
| Location / Area | Kolkata city |
| Project Implementing Agency | Amitabh Bachchan Fans’ Association Kolkata
(Registered under Society Registration Act) |
| Project Duration | 1 year |
| Proposed Activities | Ø Identifying drop out and other deprived children who never been to school
Ø Intervention with children and their Family for bringing them in schools Ø Ensure school enrollment and regular classes of participant students. Ø Extra class after school hours for the participants children Ø Ensuring community participation and formation of Program Monitoring Committee Ø Advocacy with the stakeholders Ø Support in Education kits Ø Grant support for special and emergency requirement |
| Budget Requirement | Rs 50.00 lac for 1 year
Rs 5000 per student for 1 year |
ISSUES / VULNERABILITIES/ SCOPE OF INTERVENTION
The proposed location for project will be basically slum area, where the people struggle hard to earn two square meal every day. Many of them hardly bother about their child’s education. There may be many socio-economic factors for discontinuing or not getting the education. In many occasion children are forced for domestic help or child labour even by their family members. Also due to lack of interest and peer influence many children stop.
In this project model, “Non school going” category of children are basically three types:
- Children who have dropout from school due to economical and other family reasons
- Children who have dropped out from school due to own individual factors as incompetency, lack of interest, peer influence etc.
- Children who have never been to school due to any reason.
The proposed model of intervention has been designed to intervene in all these type of children and bring them in school. The project will directly intervene with children, family, community and other stakeholders. The project has been designed with integration approach and all related stakeholders of child’s education will be covered under this model.
SCENARIO OF THE TARGETED AREA
The targeted area for intervention will be with the children of urban poor. In this context the project will be start with 20 primary schools covering all four zones (East, West, North and South) of Kolkata.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
- Bring drop out child back in school
- Enroll the children in school who have never been school
- Check drop out in school
- Support to student who belongs to ultra-poor family
BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANIZATION
ABFA Kolkata was established in the year 1979 with the objective of uniting fans of the megastar under a single umbrella. Accordingly, adequate measures were taken & fans from all corners of Bengal joined the association. Apart from celebrating the release of every film of Amitji in a flamboyant way, ABFA Kolkata has always emphasized upon their responsibility of serving the society and doing something meaningful for the weaker segment of the society as it is basically a social welfare organization. ABFA, Kolkata as a social welfare organization has always emphasized upon their responsibilities of serving the Society. Members of the association have always stood beside the under privileged section of the society and have given their best efforts to serve the downtrodden through distribution of clothes, food item, academic articles and by organizing free medical check-up camps.
Activities of ABFA:
Organizing Blood Donation camp: The ABFA organized blood donation camps every year from where a significant portion is donated in aid of Thalassaemic children.
Plantation: Members of the association have also felt the dire need of maintaining a healthy environment and likewise, have engaged themselves in plantation of trees in huge numbers, maintenance of parks and other necessary activities for curbing pollution and maintaining ecological balance.
Educational Kit Distribution: Every year we provide 200 educational kits to the students from the below poverty line.
Micro Surgery of Eyes: Members of the association arrange camp for Cataract Micro Surgery for old people belonging bellow poverty line every year.
Health Check-up camp: Members of the association arrange health check-up camp for the people of slum area every year.
Science awareness program: Arranging Science awareness programs for the students.
Relief funds for Uttarakhand: Arranged a film show in the theatre “Menoka” cinema of the movie “Satyagrah” in the year 2013 and raised a fund of Rs. 2,00,000.00 for the flood effected people of Uttarakhand.
PROPOSED ACTIVITIES / DETAIL ON EACH COMPONENT
Flow chart of Activities:
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The details of each component / activity in this project model are been discussed as follows:
- Survey:
The Baseline data of the children family will be collected through household survey. The present social and psychological situation of the children will be recorded through this. Similarly the End line survey will be done at the end of year to analyze the change brought in.
The overall impact and achievement will reflect by comparing the data of baseline and endline survey. - Selection of Participant Children:
Participant Children will be selected through the school records. Those students who have left out the school will be list out.The children who have never been to school will be identified with the help of different stakeholders including children. - Continuation of drop out student in school:
The primary goal of the project is to bring the drop child back in school. In this context series of counseling of family member and child will be done. The advocacy with the related stakeholders will also be done.- Tracking of those children who have drop out from school
- Visit to family members of those children and know the actual reason for the child drop out from the school
- Counseling of family member and motivate them to send their children to school
- Counseling session with child to encourage him on school going.
- Meet with the relevant stakeholders to support in the process
- Advocacy with school authority for continuity in school of these children
- Enrollment of children in school:
Those deprived children who are in the primary school going age but not going will be tracked from the locality and they will be enroll in the school. The process includes:- Tracking of those children who are not going school in the location near the vicinity of school.
- Visit to family members of those children and counsel them
- Counseling session with child to encourage him on school going.
- Meet with the relevant stakeholders to support in the process
- Advocacy with school authority for enrollment of these children
- Tuition / extra class after school for participant students:
The participant student will be taught 3 hour after school in separate tuition classes. The class will be taken by Education Volunteer. The classes will be taken with innovative teaching & learning aids. The objective behind these extra classes is to create the habit of schooling among the children as they have either dropped out from school or never been to school. So this arrangement will help them to rehearsal the school situation and simultaneously have a quick learning on such innovative classes. - Formation of Program Monitoring Committee:
A Program Monitoring Committee (PMC) will be formed in four zones (North, East, West and South of Kolkata). The members of PMC will be different stakeholders including government, parents and community representatives and the PIA representative (EV or EVS).The role of PMC will be to monitor and support the implementation of program. It will also help in linkages with different government of other resources for betterment of the participant children (as well as other deprived children of the locality).The PMC will meet once in a quarter (3 months) and during the whole project for 1 year. The first meeting will be for formation of a PMC, planning the monitoring mechanism and action plan for stakeholder linkages. The last one will be the review of project achievement. The rest 2 meeting will be for reporting progress and preparing action plan. - Parent Meeting:
The parents of one unit area (50 children) will meet twice in a year. The progress of each child will be discussed in this meeting. This will bring encouragement among the parents as well as children to remain more attach with school. - Support of Education kits:
A Set of education kits (exercise book, pencil, eraser etc.) will be provided to them. Around 36 copies, 42 pencils, 5 erasers, 2 Sharpeners, 1 Pencil Box and a School Bag, 2 sets of Uniform and Shoes will be given twice in year. The main objective behind this intervention is to ensure that children who are from very poor family background get at least the minimum required support on their education expenses. - Grant support:
The grant support has been kept in the project in order to meet any specific or emergency need of the participant children. The support will be given in following cases:- To meet the transport cost for school of the children of ultra poor family among the Participants children
- To meet the requirement of dress of the children of ultra poor family among the Participants children.
- To support in serious medical cases of children (ultra poor first)
- Annual conference:
An annual meet of selected Participants children, their family members and different community and government stakeholders will be done once in a year. Annual conference will be done to review success case, encourage children and family on project objective, for involvement of stakeholders. It will further provide ground for generating resources to support in program. - Training of Education Volunteer and other staff:
The training on different counseling and advocacy tool will be given to EV and EVS. As they are the main representative of PIA who directly deal with children, parents, community as well as school. They will be trained on Innovative Teaching learning method and Counseling at Family and children level.Total 2 numbers of training will be provided. The first training will be induction training and 2nd will be the refresher training at the mid of the project.
EXPECTED OUTCOME / IMPACT
The project outcome could be briefly visualized as:
- Those Children who have stopped going school will back to school.
- Those children who have never been to school will go school.
- Those children who have tendency of irregularity in school will be regular.
PROJECT TEAM
The project team consist of 1 Project Officer, 1 Assistant Project Officer, 1 Finance officer and 1 Asst. Finance officer. There will be one Education Volunteer for each school. So total 20 Education Volunteer and 2 Supervisor for each 10 EV will be in team.
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| Human Resources | No | Qualification and Experiences | Job Role |
| Project Officer | 1 | MSW with minimum 3 years of working experience in the field of child education( Specially in education) | · Responsible for overall implementation of project
· Manage the team with regular meeting and visits · Finance management in coordination with Finance team · Administrative management · Reporting and Documentation |
| Asst. Project officer | 1 | Master degree with experiences in Development sector.(In education) | · Regular Monitoring of project activities
· Compilation of monthly reports and help PO in preparing final reports · Meeting with related stakeholders. · Will assist the PO in all project related activities · Responsible for timely implementation of planned activities at field level
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| Finance Coordinator | 1 | M.Com having experiences of working in development sector | · Financial management and Maintaining of Accounts
· Preparing financial plan of project activities · Logistic management |
| Asst. Finance Coordinator | 1 | B.Com with 1 year of working experience | · Will assist the Finance coordinator in financial management and logistics. |
| Education Volunteer Supervisor | 2 | Graduate, working experience in development sector will be preferable | · Supervise the activities under taken by EV.
· Support and regular monitoring of EV. · Compilation of MIS and other reports · Meeting with the school authority and community stakeholders · Family visit and counseling · The EVS will fill the gap of EV in case of his/her absentee |
| Education Volunteer | 20 | Minimum Graduate.
( Fresher’s Can Apply) |
· Identifying and selection of drop out and not school children.
· Family visit and counseling · Child counseling · Taking class in extra hours of the participants student · Regular interaction with the school authority · Meeting with community stakeholders · Organizing parent meeting · Keeping records |
Total 1000 students (from 20 schools) will be project participant children. The Education Volunteer will work in one school with 50 children. There will be 20 EV who will be supervised by 2 Supervisor. Hence each Supervisor will be in-charge of 10 EV and 500 students.
MONITORING MECHANISM
The Monitoring system for the project review will be as follows
- Monthly Team meeting: A team will sit per month to review of task done, pending task and preparing future course of action.
- Quarterly Review meet: The quarterly review of work will be done by the Management committee
- Monitoring Visit by Management Committee on regular basis
- Monitoring by Project Monitoring Committee
- Regular field visit by PO
- Annual review – Sharing of achievement in Annual conference
- Reporting:
- Monthly -1. By EV to PO and 2. PO to Management
- Quarterly – PO to Management
- Annual Report – will be published
EVALUATION INDICATORS
The project will be evaluated on the basis of following indicators:
- Number of Re-enrollment of drop out children in school
- Increase in the attendance of irregular student
- Number of Enrollments of children who had not been to school
- Convergences done for children and their family
- Improvement in academic performance of the students
FUTURE PROJECTION
The proposed project is for the period of 1 year. It has been visualize by the ABFA that the support to each child shall be given up to completion of his/her primary education (up to Class IV). So support for 4 year will be required for student of Class I. Similarly for Class II, III IV & V 4, 3, 2 and 1 year support will be required.
This project has been proposed as pilot basis with 1000 children and it could be increase in future years. Depending upon the experiences and success of the proposed activities the project model could be revised in future.