long break from 'academy'

My sullen mood was lifted by my friends Manasa and Chythra (with whom I’m celebrating my 10^th 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 10^th 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!!