Send a Child in India to School for a Year

Village Kotla phala: Somly is 8 years old and lives with her two elder brothers and parents. Everyday she walks 2 kms to attend her lessons in the NFE. When Somly first came to the NFE she did not know reading and writing. But soon with the support of the instructor Dashrath and her determination she picked up the reading-writing skills. Currently she is in the level, ‘A’ which is the highest level in an NFE.

One of Somly’s older brothers Jivath started working as wage-laborer after finishing 8th standard to provide supplementary income to the family. Her other brother Naresh is currently in the 7th Standard in the Government School of Sagwada village. Naresh had attended NFE for few years before studying in the Government School.

Somly regrets the fact that her brother Jivath who wanted to continue his studies could not do so due to their poor economic conditions. Somly produdly says that Jivath always encourages her and Naresh to keep studying with full determination. Jivath also helps both of her siblings in their studies with his limited knowledge.

Somly has been able to read and write simple sentences with comprehension as well as is able to execute simple addition, subtraction and multiplication. Somly aspires to be a teacher when she is an adult. However for now she simply enjoys learning in the NFE and she thinks that she will be able to continue further studies if her economic conditions allow her to chase her dreams.

Seva Mandir helps village communities run Non Formal Education Centers (NFEs) to ensure quality education to out of school children. These NFEs also act as sites of providing experience of quality education to communities. These centers are often single-teacher schools offering education to out of school children up to class 3.

The total number of NFE’ s currently functioning for current financial year is 176 with an enrolment of 4714 students.

Every year there are 2 rounds of evaluations of the students – · An yearly evaluation in March- April and · Half yearly examination in Oct – Nov

To identify the progress of a child we have categorized four levels of their learning from 0 to 4. The levels are roughly equivalent to government classes. Level 0 is when a child enters the NFE and can barely read or write.

Level 1 is where s/he can read write small words and does simple counting; identify some numbers.

When a child can start reading writing and understanding simple texts, in Mathematics can do basic counting and simple operations like addition and subtraction with small numbers, she is placed in Level 2.

At level 3 a child can read, write and understand texts in language and in Mathematics understands concepts of multiplication, division, etc.

In the few months – (Jan – April 2008) – The yearly Evaluation of the children attending NFE centers was conducted for which the data entry is being under process. Around 3000 children had participated in this evaluation. We will keep our donors posted once the entry of the data is done.

Another encouraging news to share with our donors is that the NFE teachers (instructors) were given training in October 2007 to teach English language to the children attending NFE centers. A team of Seva Mandir has recently reported that these instructors have been able to successfully introduce English to these children at NFE. The language English has been introduced because there has been a constant demand from the community and the Government Schools (where the children seek admissions after graduating from these NFE centers).

WE THANK ALL OUR RESOURCE PARTNERS FOR MAKING THE SCHOOLING POSSIBLE FOR THESE CHILDREN