My sullen mood was lifted by my
friends Manasa and Chythra (with whom I’m celebrating my 10th
friendship anniversary this month) as we got ready to visit Mysore’s Pratham
branch. They were conducting their scholarship selection test to the
economically weaker kids who had completed 10th standard and the ‘software
giant with the biggest campus’, where Manasa works, sponsors 150 of them
throughout their education till PG. I was excited to go there and listen to her
encouraging speech to the kids to do well in life :P The efforts put in by
Pratham are very well known by their ASER surveys but I was mighty impressed by
this particular CSR , the contribution for which comes directly from the
employees like her and the enthusiastic spirit of the ‘corporate volunteers’ in
conducting the various activities related to education. This observation comes especially
since I had seen these activities of the corporate sector becoming a farce, as
a photo shoot opportunity with the underprivileged once a year and then
believing that their job was done. The visit was also interesting as I got to
interact with the field workers who spoke of the increasing migration to private
schools even though no perceptible improvements in quality of education has been
seen in them when compared to public schools till now. The kids looked bright
and I was told that the cut off to take the merit test in the science stream
was 85% and income limit was 50000pa and the response was impressive.
Even though it feels great to see
such private initiative, the plight of public schools and the quality of
education still needs lot of reworking. In fact, the only dampener today was
the plight of the public school in which this test was being conducted. If this
was the case in a city, I wonder how it would be in the other parts of the
state and the country. I’m surely looking forward to some really varied
experiences in the northern part of the state during my ensuing training. Can’t
wait to discover!!
