Site Visit -â ANK Delhi
Site Visit -‐ ANK Delhi Done by : Nancy Grennstam ([email protected]), Sandeep Morthala ([email protected]) Date : 01.12.2012 ANK learning center is located in the community center building in JJ Colony of Wazirpur. It is situated about a kilometer from last year's Wazirpur learning center. The building is rented by another organisaiton and ANK sublets two rooms from them. Infront of the building there is an open area. During the day of the site visit the open area was full of people; children playing cricket and elders sitting on their cots (typical Indian beds). All the children live near to the learning center. Their family members typically work as daily wage labourer. Many also make metal clips used in packing at their home as an additional income. Some of the children are also involved in the making of the clips. (They get small metal piece from the buyer and they need to keep it in a slot and bend it). At the learning center they normally use only one room for classes and have two shifts. The morning shift between 10 to 12:30 is for school dropout children and small children who have not been to school. Afternoon, that is between 2 pm to 4:30 pm, is for remedial classes. The saturday we were visiting they held both classes at the same time and used the two classrooms. The classrooms have black boards, chairs for the teachers and basic learning materials stuck on the walls. The children sit on the floor on a rug / carpet. The children bring their own writing- and learning material. In the remedial class, there were about 20 children aged between 7 and 14 years (approximately). In the school dropout class, there were about 25 children aged between 5 and 10 years. The remedial class children being elder are more calm and most of them were doing their homeworks. The other classroom with the school dropout children and younger children was very lively, filled with laughing and shouting children. Some of the children are more active whereas other are shy. There was a very shy girl named Lakshmi about 7 years old sitting in the first row. There was another child named Faisal who is about 9 years old, he was telling that he wants to become a policeman once he grows up so that he can beat up thieves (I tried to explain that you need to bring thieves to justice but did not convince him). His brother who is about 2 years older is also in the same class. Their parents make leather shoes. There was another child named Deepak who is the same age as Faisal in the class. His family is from a village in UP and they moved to Delhi for work and it was in this process that he dropped out of school. Both of the teachers (one man and one woman) are young (at least one of them live in the same location) and have a good knowledge about teaching small children. The ANK team also works closely with the teachers to improve the quality of the education and they organise other logistics like talking to the parents of the children etc.
ANK team has a good reputation within the community. When we were walking through the colony where the families live, a couple of them asked about admitting their children to the ANK learning center. Conclusion :
1. The children seem to enjoy their time in the learning center and like the teachers and their classmates. 2. ANK team works closely with the community and is also working towards improving the quality of education. 3. The learning center seems to be good for basic education but there is potential to improve the teaching methods to make the education more interesting for children (some of the methods being mixing the learning with games, some of the methods might have been used but I did not get to see them) 4. ANK can focus a bit more on training teachers. Even though the teachers seem to be very genuine when working with the children, one teacher had difficulty communicating in English / Hindi. 5. There should be a mechanism to evolve the impact of such learning centers to see how many of the children continue education. 6. There should be regular status reports from ANK along with attendance register and photos. 7. We wish we had bit more time to spend with the children and ANK team.
Children in remedial class Lakshmi (left), Faisal (right front) and Deepak (behind Faisal) along with other children
Children who are not attending regular school yet
ANK team has a good reputation within the community. When we were walking through the colony where the families live, a couple of them asked about admitting their children to the ANK learning center. Conclusion :
1. The children seem to enjoy their time in the learning center and like the teachers and their classmates. 2. ANK team works closely with the community and is also working towards improving the quality of education. 3. The learning center seems to be good for basic education but there is potential to improve the teaching methods to make the education more interesting for children (some of the methods being mixing the learning with games, some of the methods might have been used but I did not get to see them) 4. ANK can focus a bit more on training teachers. Even though the teachers seem to be very genuine when working with the children, one teacher had difficulty communicating in English / Hindi. 5. There should be a mechanism to evolve the impact of such learning centers to see how many of the children continue education. 6. There should be regular status reports from ANK along with attendance register and photos. 7. We wish we had bit more time to spend with the children and ANK team.
Children in remedial class Lakshmi (left), Faisal (right front) and Deepak (behind Faisal) along with other children
Children who are not attending regular school yet
