JOIN USBreaching the reach barrier
Four higher primary schools at Bichchali, Talamari and Tungabhadra villages of Raichur taluk have overcome their resource handicap, putting to use networking technology. It’s a common sight these days in these schools of students in classes VI, VII and VIII wishing their teachers and conversing among themselves in English.
Networking major Cisco, which has built 1,000 homes out of the 3,750 it had promised for the flood-affected in the taluk, has now come forward to build the lives of the underprivileged children, under Project Samudaya as part of its Cisco Education Enabled Development (CEED) programme, launched on August 27, 2010.
The programme aims at providing quality healthcare facilities for the children, besides state-of-the-art education facilities. Cisco volunteers have installed computers, besides a projector, a web camera, audio speaker and microphone in each of the 11 schools that it has adopted in five villages.
The company has taken on board teachers of Evronn educational institution in Chennai, who teach the rudimentaries of English, through Kannada, to the children from Chennai.
Tips on conversation, pronunciation and identification of various things in English are part of the new age distance education. All that the schools need to provide is a teacher who guides the children in the learning process.
At present, two schools in Talamari and one school each in Bichchali and Tungabhadra villages have English classes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 am to noon, thanks to the networking technology.
The whole teaching-learning process is beamed live on giant LCD screens of all the four schools. A whole new world opens up for the upbeat schoolchildren, while their parents are awestruck as their wards lap up every bit of the basics of English syntax and vocabulary.
They interact with the teachers, ask questions and answer the posers put forth by the teachers. Interestingly, the girls show more interest in learning English.
Buoyed by the success of the experiment, M Kailaschandra, Head Master of the government school in Bichchali, teacher Urmila and Cisco networking engineer Anil are want the classes held six days a week. They recommend that the methodology be adopted for maths and science too.
Aravind Seetharaman of Cisco told Deccan Herald that the firm had plans to extend this project to other parts of the State.
Discussions were on with the government on plans to train teachers.