Dear Friends
On Sunday Oct12,2008 we visited Central college campus, Bangalore university to meet up with Prof.Venugopal on our member Mr.Gopal.
Attendees : Gopal, Sivanarayanan, Udhay, Vinod M
Highlights of the visit :
Prof.Venugopal is associated with Karnataka Association for advancement of science[KAAS]
. He also runs rural school and does a lot of science promotion.
a) KAAS :
- KAAS was established by senior professor(90 years old) Prof . Ananda Rao who was key behind this. Every 4th saturday of the month they have discussion/lecture on science topic at Central college campus. Anyone interested can attend that.
- They have prepared very good “Teacher’s training module” – 4 day course to train teachers in science.
- The course is theory half-day & practical cum Q&A session.
Each subject dealt one day.
- Very innovative teaching methods. For example in chemistry teaching live demo of how to prepare detergent were shown & whole 10kgs were given to teachers themselves. SAme way spectrometer in simple way was construceted in a session.
- They have taken up Chikbellapur district & working on all the taluks to train the teachers.
- Mode of teaching is good. First the teachers are enquired on which they feel tough to teach & sessions are designed accordingly.
- In 3 taluks nodal centre teacher library were setup.
- They have promised to build chemistry kit for 700/kit.
- India Sudar can fund a few kits & see how it goes as training.
We have been thinking of working in chikbellapur district.
- In Nov teachers progarm is being done in Chikragudur taluk.
b) Rural school run by Prof. Venugopal
- Not many time we encounter a private school in rural village being run in high standards, but still affordable.
- “Green valley public school” ws started 3 years ago in Beghihosalli, 5km
from Kolar town.
- Nominal fee of 150/month is charged from LKG to 10th Standard. If school bus is opted for then it adds 100/month.
- There are 30 teachers and school is being run on donations.
Around 2 lakhs is being spent on salary alone. Retired forest officer had donated 7 acres of land for them.
- Totally 550 children are studying.
- Prof.Venugopal has invited us to visit school sometime in near future.
- As many as 80 students are trained for NTSE exam(national talent search exam)
3) Reading room/home !
- After retirement Prof.Venugopal has choosen to live near kolar.
- In his house itself he runs informal school. as many as 25-30 children reguarly visit his home.
- He has alloted a big room as library cum computer centre. Children have individual mats to sit & work on what they like. A very good library is also maintained. Many books were donated by Mr.Gopal himself.
- The children are free to use anything from his home, rarity in that village where social stigma is high.
- All the books read by individual students are logged.
- He is very good example to show how rural children can be empowered.
Photos can be seen at :
http://picasaweb.google.com/indiasudar/TheKarnatakaAssociationForTheAdvancementOfScience#
Our sincere thanks to Mr.Gopal who introduced us to the professor.
Regards
shiva
On behalf of KA team
