Children (belonging to village, Karakottai in Tamil Nadu State, India) are marching towards the technological era with confidence. This confidence they attained after influencing few children in their village, who were drop outs from schools to enroll back to the school as an impact of their Project Based Learning.
“Project successful”! proudly says Ms. Magdalene, teacher on seeing her students’ efforts for creating an impact on other children of the village to march in the right path.
Panchayat Union Middle School, a Government school (Public School) students have proved the potential of the students’ community and also have set an example on how to live with civic responsibility. Students have brought fame and popularity to their village viz.,
Karakottai, by bringing the drop out students to enroll back in the school. Karakottai is a village in Needamangalam block of Thiruvarur District – one of the most backward districts of Tamil Nadu having around 525 households with an overall population of around 2500 people. Around 300 plus would be children in the age group of 6 – 14 years out of which 10 to 15% of them have been either drop outs i.e., discontinued their studies in the early stages or never entered the school. Basically they were leading their life like nomads. Almost 90% of the parents’ population was depending on the agriculture field. Parents did not like their children to go to school as they can also be employed and fetch income for the family in the farming fields. People/pupil enters the school only during the heavy rainy season for shelter. 17% of parent’s population is the owners of the agriculture fields, where 75% are the dependents and most of them were the daily wagers. 5% of the parents’ community affix themselves to the Government sectors.
Ms. Magdalene, since her entry to the village, has been empathetically moved on seeing the drop outs / non visitors amongst the children between the age group 6 – 14 years. She has been contacting to contact the village head – Panchayat committee heads and other committee members to avail their support on bringing all the children of the village to their school. She has a high vision basically to ensure that all the children should be given the right of education. She had contacted a few parents who have never shown interest on sending their wards to the school, oriented them on the need of education but most of her efforts failed. Being a courageous person, she did not give up her task of bringing the drop outs back to the school.
“Right bell rings for the right people – yes, great opportunity started knocking the door to fulfill her ambition – was the Intel ® Teach program, Project based learning methodology and the teachers’ contest”, said Ms. Magdalene.
She had an opportunity to undergo the training under Intel® Teach Program and had attended the enhancement workshop also. Right message was captured to design the PBL ideas and assign the students to take the roles. Ms. Magdalene, who was waiting for the opportunity started her preparation of planning the implementation of the lesson on ‘Children rights’ from Civics of Social Science subject. This lesson is being taught for both VII and VIII standard students. Instead of the conventional method, she had planned to guide the students, asked them to explore the problems by conducting the surveys, assigned area wise survey heads by dividing the students in to different groups. Initially, the parents’ did not cooperate, and Ms. Magdalene had also received the harsh comment like “No other jobs!!! Do not worry my kids”.
Headmaster of the school started understanding the power of the students who had started encouraging and supported each and every step of Ms. Magdalene. Headmaster shared that at the time of his entry to the village around 50% of students were illiterate and he had even received life threatening calls from the parents (who send their wards to the agriculture fields to fetch daily wages). He succeeded to a level by convincing a few parents and as he had seen Ms. Magdalene with the same aim and goal, extended his support.
Ms. Magdalene started the PBL implementation and Mr. Dandapani, District Computer Aided Learning Coordinator, started giving her suggestions and guided the entire team. “Project Based Learning using computer technology is a novel method introduced by SSA – Intel in the Intel Teach training program to teachers” said Mr. Dandapani. The students were assigned the task of collecting the data of problems that lead to child labour. They analyzed and as they were highly motivated planned to create an awareness to the public on the problems and the solutions to the problems in different ways. “We found that the reasons for child labour were poverty and lack of awareness. We have decided to initiate awareness in them. So we conducted a rally and conference. During the rally, pupils kept placards and shouting the anti child labour slogans”, said Ms. Magdalene.
Ms. Magdalene on getting all the supports guided the students to conduct the Parent Teachers’ Association Meeting where the she had guided the students to create awareness to all the parents on eradication of child labour. Parents realizing the need on improvement of their village extended their support in the project of the students. Students then conducted street Shows to capture the interest of the public, some time the students have spent their entire evening from 4:30pm till 11:30pm on this. The villagers were touched by the drama and songs which expressed the condition, emotion and unfulfilled dreams of child labours. The villagers and the Presidents started realizing the importance of education and accepted to work for a child labour free village.
Ms. Magdalene, realized the effect of technology. She guided the students to present their findings to the neighbors. The students have shown more interest in learning the skills and also on showcasing the presentation to the people. The students showcased their project “child labour” in nearby areas guided by their teacher Mrs. B. Magdalene Premalatha.
Entire village people were invited in turns to look at their findings and this had impacted the villagers to realize the need on education.
Village heads decided to take this as a mission to enroll the entire drop out students and also to provide the quality education to all the students. “Karakottai should attain the self sufficiency on attaining the quality education” said the Panchayat head, the entire village had taken oath to attain 0% child labour and to attempt on 100% literacy in the village.
Village Education Committee took an active role and due to awareness created by this program made 7 drop out students to enroll back in the school. The NGO of the local area has come forward to sponsor the educational expenses for those students. It is a success not only for the teacher, but for the community as a whole.”
 | As a result of this Project,
R.Dinesh(VIII), - BC
J.Regina Mary(VIII),
M.Sangeetha(VII),
T.Elakiya(IV),
E.Vivek(III),
S.Sitrarasan(III)
and S.Sakthivel(I)
regained their right to education.
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The Intel® Teach Program has helped teachers learn how to integrate technology effectively to improve teaching and learning. The technology oriented teaching environment has facilitated in furthering the cause of education standards in schools all over the country.
The following success stories highlight the results gained from participation in Intel® Teach Program:
| Kolkata, West Bengal, India: A 14 year old, 1X grade student, Tukai Sarkar saves her mother from malnutrition. The teacher and the student put the learning on the topic nutrition to good use. More… |
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The Intel® Teach Program training session was conducted at IASE, Jamia in 2002, where 26 faculty members trained as master trainers. Post the Intel training, technology integration was made a component of the
Methodology of Teaching, a compulsory pedagogy course in the academic session 2002-03.
Learn more…During one of the ICT in education showcasing event at MES Kishore Kendra, Military school, Peenya, senior officials and policy makers from Karnataka State Education department interacted with the students on their learning experience while working on projects like, population explosion, banking, industrialization, and biotechnology. It was very convincing to the senior officers that regularizing `Project Based Learning’ in the schools would help large number of students studying in the Government schools.
Learn more…A fascinating journey which took off as a small pilot study of Intel® Teach Program Pre-service Program conducted in Osmania University, Andhra Pradesh, with its 32 affiliated Colleges of Education has resulted in launch of Intel® Teach Program Pre-service Curriculum, as a text book for B.Ed, in Telugu, the regional language of the state. Thereby affecting 330 Colleges of Education and 35,000 Student Teachers in the state. The program continues to impact the change in education policies of the state, as Intel has been invited to be one of the advisor to the `State Advisory Committee’ constituted to bring about quality in Teacher Education.
Learn more…Empowered with technology, students of A.K. Moradiya (AKM) High School, Nari, a small village in the state of Gujarat, get opportunities to help solve their real life concerns through technology supported Project Based Learning. The village Panchayat is deeply touched by the enthusiasm and concern of these young students’ initiative to serve their community and decides to implement the solutions provided by them with immediate effect.
Learn more…
