Solomon High School Site Visit
Solomon High School Site Visit August 3rd 2014 Pranesh Srinivasan
Basic Information Date of the Site Visit: 24th July 2014 Name of the Project: TTF WST for Solomon High School Was your site visit announced? Yes, it was planned
Project Contact Information Site Visitor Information Name Rashmi Prasad (TTF) Pranesh Srinivasan Phone + 91804113 1930 9742021236 Email [email protected] [email protected]
Beneficiaries 1. Approximately how many families live in the are? The school is very much within Bangalore the area is densely populated. 2. What do the parents do for a living? Most of the community are daily wage labourers and small convenience store employees. 3. What is the religions / economic / educational background of the parents / community? Are the parents able to pay any fees? Are the parents literate? The neighbouring community is primarily Islamic and the school caters to this community. The fees are low for a private school in Bangalore (around 400 rupees per month). Most parents are able to pay the fees though some need deductions. Most of the parents are not very literate. Some of the teachers I spoke to said this was the biggest challenge they face as teachers in the school. 4. How often do the teachers meet the parents? Since most of the parents work / take care of large families, PTA meetings are not common. Informal meeting happens somewhat regularly (around once in 12 months) when a parent might come to pick up the child / be asked to meet the teacher / parent.
Comments From the TTF office, we (Rashmi, Anshuman, Nancy & I) proceeded to the school. The school itself is in two buildings a few hundred metres apart in a public area. One building caters to montessori and primary school, while the other caters to middle and high school:
Montessori School Session (1)
Montessori School Session (2) The particular day I had gone was the last day of work before the ten day Ramadan break. There was an assembly in the latter building with students leading:
Students and Teachers at the Special Ramadan Assembly The school itself has now grown to 1500 students and has around 45 teachers. The principal had taken a year to become convinced about the WST program. Several meetings with Nancy, a visit to the previous year's TTF teacher graduation and the knowledge of other schools also implementing it within the area finally convinced him.
Meeting with the Principal I first met with the owner and principal, Mr. Faisal Shah. Our conversation was surprisingly straightforward. I asked him about his expectations of the WST. He seemed fairly realistic in acknowledging that: 1. It is a program for training teachers upto class 7, and he cannot expect immediate results in terms of results. 2. A few teachers would probably leave by the end of the program, and he was okay if even 60% of the trained teachers stayed. He said he had placed his faith in a few teachers who had been around for 8+ years 1 who could be expected to stay.
3. Extra time outside school hours cannot primarily be used to fund the program's time demands. He was planning to declare alternate Saturdays as holidays to lower and middle school students and teachers so that the teachers could wholly be present for the TTF program.
However, he also wants his high school teachers to take part in the TTF WST Program in a passive manner they would attend workshops and the training courses, but not be part of the active evaluation loop that happens in Year 2. I also found out that some of the teachers in the school take tuitions for students in the school itself outside school hours. This was slightly concerning for me and the TTF representatives, but he assured us the ratio of such teachers was not high and that he was planning to crack down on it. He was also not fully aware of Asha's role in funding the project. He had the simplified notion that he would put up some money and TTF would arrange for the rest.
Teachers I then proceeded to meet some of his teachers. We spoke about the challenges they had and what they expected from the program: 1. The teachers were not preinformed about the program. They had only been told that they were going to go through a workshop. Anshuman (TTF representative) & I informed them about the structure, nature, and purpose of the workshop.
2. They highlighted that their biggest difficulty was in working with the mindset of parents in the neighbourhood (literate and illiterate alike). Their next highest concern was in managing and disciplining students. This is something that the TTF WST program is
designed to fix.
3. They were eager to know more about the nature and details of the certificates given at the end of the process. One teacher even asked the principal if she would be eligible for the second year of the program if she quits in one year to become a home maker2.
Students Finally, we met some of the students. They were all very cheerful; we briefed them about the program before proceeding to more relevant questions like what their interests are and what their day to day schedules were: 1. Around 25% of the students said they took private tuition lessons outside school. 2. One of the boys even had a 6am 8pm schedule; tuition for two hours in the morning, followed by school, followed by a small break, and then three hours of tuition in the evening again!
3. Most of remaining students asked their elder siblings about homework and other subject and school related questions. In the sample size I met, only a couple of students were able to ask their parents.
Miscellaneous 1. Their classrooms were fairly spacious and the blackboards large. The TTF trainers were eager to work with the teachers on teaching them how to use their blackboards:
Class Room in Senior School Building (1)
Class Room in Senior School Building (2) 2. They had a room fitted with a projector and other teaching aids. I am told that this was funded entirely by the state government for the weekly Internet Video Lessons (which do not work well because of bad internet connections):
State funded projector in one of the classroms
Miscellaneous Photos
Corridors
Poster in the junior school corridor
Frontal view of Solomon High school
Teacher's break room
Mr. Faisal Shah (principal) with Anshuman and Rashmi from TTF
Summary I think the WST TTF program is a good fit for the school given the realistic expectations of the principal. I also think the teachers in this school, and thus the children are likely to significantly benefit from this initiative. 1. The school is 13 years old.↩ 2. Mr. Faisal denied this request.↩
Basic Information Date of the Site Visit: 24th July 2014 Name of the Project: TTF WST for Solomon High School Was your site visit announced? Yes, it was planned
Project Contact Information Site Visitor Information Name Rashmi Prasad (TTF) Pranesh Srinivasan Phone + 91804113 1930 9742021236 Email [email protected] [email protected]
Beneficiaries 1. Approximately how many families live in the are? The school is very much within Bangalore the area is densely populated. 2. What do the parents do for a living? Most of the community are daily wage labourers and small convenience store employees. 3. What is the religions / economic / educational background of the parents / community? Are the parents able to pay any fees? Are the parents literate? The neighbouring community is primarily Islamic and the school caters to this community. The fees are low for a private school in Bangalore (around 400 rupees per month). Most parents are able to pay the fees though some need deductions. Most of the parents are not very literate. Some of the teachers I spoke to said this was the biggest challenge they face as teachers in the school. 4. How often do the teachers meet the parents? Since most of the parents work / take care of large families, PTA meetings are not common. Informal meeting happens somewhat regularly (around once in 12 months) when a parent might come to pick up the child / be asked to meet the teacher / parent.
Comments From the TTF office, we (Rashmi, Anshuman, Nancy & I) proceeded to the school. The school itself is in two buildings a few hundred metres apart in a public area. One building caters to montessori and primary school, while the other caters to middle and high school:
Montessori School Session (1)
Montessori School Session (2) The particular day I had gone was the last day of work before the ten day Ramadan break. There was an assembly in the latter building with students leading:
Students and Teachers at the Special Ramadan Assembly The school itself has now grown to 1500 students and has around 45 teachers. The principal had taken a year to become convinced about the WST program. Several meetings with Nancy, a visit to the previous year's TTF teacher graduation and the knowledge of other schools also implementing it within the area finally convinced him.
Meeting with the Principal I first met with the owner and principal, Mr. Faisal Shah. Our conversation was surprisingly straightforward. I asked him about his expectations of the WST. He seemed fairly realistic in acknowledging that: 1. It is a program for training teachers upto class 7, and he cannot expect immediate results in terms of results. 2. A few teachers would probably leave by the end of the program, and he was okay if even 60% of the trained teachers stayed. He said he had placed his faith in a few teachers who had been around for 8+ years 1 who could be expected to stay.
3. Extra time outside school hours cannot primarily be used to fund the program's time demands. He was planning to declare alternate Saturdays as holidays to lower and middle school students and teachers so that the teachers could wholly be present for the TTF program.
However, he also wants his high school teachers to take part in the TTF WST Program in a passive manner they would attend workshops and the training courses, but not be part of the active evaluation loop that happens in Year 2. I also found out that some of the teachers in the school take tuitions for students in the school itself outside school hours. This was slightly concerning for me and the TTF representatives, but he assured us the ratio of such teachers was not high and that he was planning to crack down on it. He was also not fully aware of Asha's role in funding the project. He had the simplified notion that he would put up some money and TTF would arrange for the rest.
Teachers I then proceeded to meet some of his teachers. We spoke about the challenges they had and what they expected from the program: 1. The teachers were not preinformed about the program. They had only been told that they were going to go through a workshop. Anshuman (TTF representative) & I informed them about the structure, nature, and purpose of the workshop.
2. They highlighted that their biggest difficulty was in working with the mindset of parents in the neighbourhood (literate and illiterate alike). Their next highest concern was in managing and disciplining students. This is something that the TTF WST program is
designed to fix.
3. They were eager to know more about the nature and details of the certificates given at the end of the process. One teacher even asked the principal if she would be eligible for the second year of the program if she quits in one year to become a home maker2.
Students Finally, we met some of the students. They were all very cheerful; we briefed them about the program before proceeding to more relevant questions like what their interests are and what their day to day schedules were: 1. Around 25% of the students said they took private tuition lessons outside school. 2. One of the boys even had a 6am 8pm schedule; tuition for two hours in the morning, followed by school, followed by a small break, and then three hours of tuition in the evening again!
3. Most of remaining students asked their elder siblings about homework and other subject and school related questions. In the sample size I met, only a couple of students were able to ask their parents.
Miscellaneous 1. Their classrooms were fairly spacious and the blackboards large. The TTF trainers were eager to work with the teachers on teaching them how to use their blackboards:
Class Room in Senior School Building (1)
Class Room in Senior School Building (2) 2. They had a room fitted with a projector and other teaching aids. I am told that this was funded entirely by the state government for the weekly Internet Video Lessons (which do not work well because of bad internet connections):
State funded projector in one of the classroms
Miscellaneous Photos
Corridors
Poster in the junior school corridor
Frontal view of Solomon High school
Teacher's break room
Mr. Faisal Shah (principal) with Anshuman and Rashmi from TTF
Summary I think the WST TTF program is a good fit for the school given the realistic expectations of the principal. I also think the teachers in this school, and thus the children are likely to significantly benefit from this initiative. 1. The school is 13 years old.↩ 2. Mr. Faisal denied this request.↩
