Hi -- This goes to show nothing is impossible ..
venkat
In powerless Bihar village, a school by innovation and Skype
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/In-powerless-Bihar-village--a-school-by-innovation-and-Skype/735925
Irena Akbar & Santosh Singh, New Delhi/Chamanpura
Indian Express, January 11, 2011
Intro: Upset by MNS's anti-Bihari campaign, Chandrakant Singh decided to
help his village stand on its feet.
In an under-construction school building in Chaman pura village of
Bihar's Gopalganj district, children are learning algebra, chemistry,
Newton's laws of motion.
There's no teacher in the classroom, no blackboard. The teacher is
hundreds of miles away, and he is teaching via Skype. In this very
unsual school, teachers mark their attendance using a biometric
fingerprinter, and students log their attendance in a computer.
The school is even more unusual because Chamanpura has no electricity
yet. The computers are powered by two large generators. In an
undeveloped corner of a state that has long been synonymous with
underdevelopment, is unfolding a story of remarkable enterprise and
innovation -in several ways, a microcosm of the turnaround of Bihar
itself.
The hero of the story is 36year-old Chandrakant Singh, who founded
Chaitanya Gurukul Public School to "provide world-class,
technology-enabled education" to the children of Chamanpura, the village
in which he was born, and where he completed primary school by the light
of a kerosene lamp.
A merit scholarship took Singh to DAV College in
Siwan, and then to a B.Tech from BIT, Sindri, and an M.Tech at IIT,
Bombay. Then came a one-year stint at Tata Steel, followed by three
years at Bosch in Germany -and finally, his current job as an R&D
researcher for General Motors in Bangalore.
For a man of a distinctly academic bent of mind -he got his first patent
while in Germany it took, oddly, an incident of lumpen politics to fire
Singh's dream. Three years ago, when Raj Thackeray's MNS was attacking
Bihari migrants in Mumbai, Singh decided to do something. "I was
disturbed, and wanted to arrest the migration of students from Bihar,"
he said. The first instinct was to get in touch with the principal of
the primary government school in Chamanpura with an offer to fund six
students who would pass a scholarship test. But the principal never
conducted the test.
Singh sought the advice of Surya Narayan, dean of IIT, Bombay, who
suggested that he make a business plan for a revenue-generating model.
Singh then wrote a 100-page plan - a blueprint for a Rs 30-crore campus
that would be completed over 10 years, including a school, an
engineering college and an R&D centre. He e-mailed the plan to 3,000
friends, eight of whom agreed to fund it.
With these eight and himself, Singh formed the Chaitnaya Gurukul Trust.
After the state government approved the proposal, the trustees met the
villagers of Chamanpura and told them of the first step of the project -
the Class I-VII Chaitanya Public School. Within three months, they had
13 acres of land - from 100 villagers who sold plots from 3 decimals to
an acre in size, at a price that was 30 per cent above market rates.
The construction of the school began in May 2009, and the generators -
15 KVA and 25 KVA - came first. A year and a half later, the school has
45 rooms on two Wi-Fi-enabled floors - 10 of which are classrooms, each
with an LCD monitor or a projector, the rest being offices, a library, a
17-machine computer lab with 24-hour broadband Internet, and residential
quarters for students and teachers. There are four volleyball courts,
four badminton courts and a cricket pitch.
A swimming pool is under construction. Teachers came from across Bihar,
through a competitive exam. Sixteen of them received two months of
training from teachers at Mount Carmel School and IIT professors at
Bangalore.
They were taught how to use Powerpoint and Flash technology, and given
lessons in team-building. Singh is on the faculty, teaching residential
students Math on weekends via Skype from Bangalore. Several other
offsite trustees teach via Skype: Pankaj Kumar, a BIT, Sindri almunus,
teaches Physics from his home in Singrauli, MP, where he works with
NTPC, and Sanjay Rai, from BITS, Pilani, teaches Chemistry from Korwa,
UP, where he works with HAL.
The school's first session opened in April 2010 with 500 students, 10
per cent of the number of applicants. The students came from all
backgrounds - there is Om Prakash, son of a rickshawpuller from
neighbouring Hakam village, seven-year-old Rima, whose father is an
engineer in Chennai, and Harshita Kumar, the 10-yearold daughter of a
doctor in Ballia, UP. But most students are from 50 villages in Chhapra,
Siwan and Gopalganj districts. The basic tuition fee is Rs 300 for Class
I and increases by Rs 100 for every class upward. Hostel residents are
charged Rs 4,000 a month - but concessions are made depending on the
income of the child's family, which the trustees ascertain themselves by
travelling to their villages and meeting their families.
ARTISTS IN SOLIDARITY WITH DR BINAYAK SEN
An afternoon of cultural protest by artists, musicians, poets, film directors and writers against the persecution of Dr Binayak Sen will be held on 15th January at Jantar Mantar from 2-7 PM under the banner of 'Artists for Human Rights'.
Among those participating are well-known filmmakers, musicians, singers, poets and students bands from colleges and universities in Delhi.
Filmmakers: Aparna Sen, Gautam Ghose and Sudhir Mishra
Musicians: Rabbi Shergill, Susmit Bose and Dhruv Sangari
Poets and writers: Ashok Vajpeyi, K.Satchidanandan, Kumarnarain, Mangalesh Dabral, Gagan Gill, Sanjay Kundan, Teji Grover, Khursheed Alam, Mukul Priyadarshini and Gauhar Raza.
Bands: Imphal Talkies, Sangwari and other students bands
All are invited to come and attend the protest.
For further information contact:
Satya Sivaraman: Ph: 9818514952
Apoorvanand: 27662146
Manisha Sethi: 9811625577
Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association (www.teacherssolidarity.org)
