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School Entrance: Carrying Broader Message of Service
South East Boundary of the School has Resettlement Jhuggi Cluster

Challenges Faced during the Process of Transformation

 Poor Attendance and Absenteeism: We noticed that the attendance had started falling in all classes
and especially senior secondary classes. This started affecting students‘ performance as well as health
and a majority of them developed behavioural problems too. Our routine instructions, counseling and
intimation to parents was of not much avail and we had to conduct a detailed study. After analysing
the study inputs we reached the conclusion that there were three major factors:

 Visiting out of station home towns with parents to attend ceremonies or rituals

 Making coaching or tutorial classes first choice over school
 Avoiding school to avoid class tests, home assignments and enjoying at home with mobile
phones and television and long medical treatment. We had à couple of meeting sessions with
teachers, SMC and social workers and devised comprehensive action plan for all except the
last one. We reached to parents through all channels and organised orientation programme on
‗Parents‘ Participation and Partnership‘. The parents who hailed from different parts of
Northern Indian states had genuine problems as they had neither any local arrangement nor
they could leave their children alone.

They were taken into confidence, counseled rationally and made to accept the fact that longer interruption
in child‘s study could be reduced drastically by advance planning, arrangements and making use of faster
mode of travel. Many of the parents agreed to our proposals and attendance and performance of their
wards improved encouragingly.
Coaching and Tutorial classes play key role in misinforming and diverting students from school. They
not only prolong their courses but also undermine school teachers‘ capabilities, concept, clarity and
knowledge of the subject. We talked to parents, students and teachers and discussed the dubious design of
theses commercial players and made the students believe that the school had no parallel or substitute. We
also started smart planning in giving home assignment and made students take interest in doing things at
their own pace and with peer/ pair help. For examination, we kept things stress free and convinced
students for concept clarity, presentation, application and extrapolation. Inclusion is our motto and we do
respect individual‘s strength as well as weaknesses and collaborate for achieving his/ her best. We do not
let class tests and examinations dominate students‘ psyche and go for random and unannounced short
class tests followed by discussion on students‘ performance and presentation.

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