India

India Summary

6 Schools with 700 pupils

The schools are in the Himalaya foothills and in the slums of large urban areas. They exist to provide education to those children who would not have access to state schools.

Some children walk three hours to attend school, and then they walk home, in the cold air of the mountainous evenings.

They are all fee paying schools but a blind eye is turned if the poor cannot pay. Their education is secure.

All schools teach using rote.

They have little or no books for reading either in the school or in homes. Educational resources are virtually non existent.

RATA first visited in 2009 with a team of 4 RATA teachers and ran a two day retreat to train and equip our Indian colleagues.

Comments from India after 2009 RATA trip

There are six teachers and one helper. The school is bi-lingual. The text books are in English and the teachers explain the work in English and in Hindi. The level of English fluency of the children is very basic. It is second language learning not supported at home. It is not a total immersion English school.

There is no library and no books other than the textbooks. The younger classes fill out work books and the older classes fill out the answers in exercise books. Each room has two windows, a door and a blackboard. There are two rows of benches with three students at each. There is nothing on the walls.

An Indian teacher's reflection on RATA's training. I learnt to be not very harsh with children but would encourage them to do their homework. I also learnt to understand and recognize numbers from two kinds of dice, spots and numerals.

What does the classroom look like? One large classroom with one blackboard at each end and the children are divided into two groups looking at one blackboard each, sitting at benches in rows. The floor and walls are concrete and there is a mat available for sitting on. Two other very small classrooms (approx 2.5 m x 5m ) with a dirt floor and mats, a blackboard, a teacher's chair and small teacher's table. One doubles as a staff room.

We teach all subjects by getting children to copy, answer questions orally and write answers to questions from the blackboard.

The school is an old derelict damaged building which had no power until two years ago. There are often monsoons and landslides. Children travel 15-20 kms to school. Education involves parent and family needs. A big girl/boy imbalance in the school. Parents don't let girls go to school and the principal's focus is to try get the girls to come to school. Female literacy in the area is half the male literacy. It is an English medium school with 65 students.

The children listen well to the teachers and do homework well. The school would like help with developing new programmes and teaching methods. They would like training in using reading books in the classroom. The children have difficulty paying attention, they would like help in finding techniques to help with this. Another issue is that the children are bringing a lot of emotional baggage from the home environment and this is a barrier to learning. They want the children to learn better and become more engaged in the learning that they do.

Feedback from Teachers in India

Things we learn from the training

1. Educating children through games
2. Teaching mathematics through games
3. Easy ways of teaching maths
4. Teaching while playing and having fun
5. Recognizing letters using dices
6. Using games to teach numbers
7. Right pronunciation of words
8. Methods of teaching
9. Ways of teaching poems
10. To catch them when they are good!!!!

Financial Report for India Team

Accommodation/Food $160.00
Internal Transport $234.00
Delhi Stay (Taj Mahal)
(Incl. Hotel and tourist package with guide for two nights) $395.00
Airfares and Visa's
$3490
TOTAL $4279.009 (per rata teacher)
( It will be approx $1000.00 cheaper in 2011 due to booking our airline tickets in advance)

COUNTRIES

Ghana

We began new work in Ghana, working alongside three schools filled with students eager to learn and with little or no resources and limited trained teachers. One school is constructed of wooden planks with gapping holes. Children sit five to a table sharing a book.

India

We took a team of four people from New Zealand and worked in the foothills of the Himalayas with teachers from six schools under the umbrella of one organization. These schools are in mountain villages where some children have to walk 3 hours a day to attend.

South Africa

The RATA New Zealand teachers will fly to CapeTown with a planned stop over. In CapeTown we will revisit our favourite tourist destinations and as always we will stay in the suburb of Observatory and drink the marvelous Horlicks milkshakes at OBS café.