A little background on how I ended up in Uppal today. Thanks to IDEX I went to a capital raising workshop hosted by Sankalp Forum. After the forum while chatting with another IDEX Fellow, I met Badri. Badri introduced himself to me and mentioned he is in the education sector. I promptly whipped out his business card when I got back to Aparna to email him. I had gone through his website littleonespreschools.com I wanted to know more so he invited me to Uppal to visit with one of the schools he is working with.
The trip to Uppal was long first taking the bus to Koti and then another bus to Uppal. I left the complex on the 9 am bus and reached after 11 am. It was worth missing Zumba which I will make it to on Saturday by all means. In Uppal, Badri played the host. He wanted to get a sense of what I'm doing in India with Sankalp Taru and why I'm interested in education. We chatted over pizza and pepsi about the work Badri is doing in the area. Badri is using a holistic approach to ensure students not only learn academically but gain personal and social skills to lay a sound foundation for their educational careers. Nutrition is addressed by providing menus to schools to ensure students receive balanced meals and adequate nutrition. There is a social aspect and computer skills integrated into the program. There is a computer based curriculum that is broken down into grade levels, subjects and months. This ensures even an under qualified teacher is able to teach their students adequately. The program is in English because English is taught in the privately owned pre schools. This approach is meant to combat the perception that preschool to kindergarten students are just learning pure academics or just being babysat while their parents are at work. An assessment was developed to assess a students overall development. This assessment shows a child's strong areas and weak areas. Parents are given the assessments and taught how to encourage their kids to improve in their weak areas while supporting their strong areas.
At Bright Kids Pre School I met the founder who started the school to address the gap in quality provided by pre schools. His school caters to age 3 - 5 and uses a holistic approach. Instead of birthday cake, students plant a tree on their birthday and help take care of them. The kids are already learning about composting and eco-friendly behavior. The founder is an environmentalist who believes taking care of yourself and teaching sustainability is the way to improving the environment. The school was founded in 2011 and currently works with Little Ones Pre Schools. Badri provides Bright Kids Pre School with technology and teachers training. Some teachers are not qualified to teach toddlers. There is a specific training individuals must go through in order to be qualified to teach pre k to kindergarten but the quality of education teachers get is varied. Schools get flash cards for teachers to play interactive educational games in the classroom and enable to focus on one thing at a time. Instead of charts with numbers or animals the flashcards enable a child to focus on one thing like learning to spell dog and read the word
The trip back felt longer. Badri suggested I go through Mehdipatam and then catch a bus to Chanda Nagar. This felt so much longer and cost more than my trip to Uppal. Turns out Mehdipatam is farther east than Koti. Not many buses go to Ligampally and pass through Chanda Nagar so it almost took an hour and asking several people before I caught a bus from Mehdipatam. I will stick to going through Koti for peace of mind about my finances.
So today may be the start of a working relationship with Badri. He would like me to visit pre schools that he is not currently working with. Once I gain knowledge on the different education programs and structures I will have a better understanding of how schools run. When visiting with the schools I will be interacting with administration and teachers about what the school's vision is and mission for its students. I will also see how Badri's organization could benefit these schools based on what improvements and challenges the schools face.
