For over 15 years, we have been relating productive activities to school curriculum. It is our conviction that these activities inculcate democratic values, responsible nature, hard working mentality and the zeal to be inventive and creative among the students. We also believe that such an approach is a novel way of implementing Gandhiji’s vision of basic education (‘Nai Talim’). For the first time in our fifteen years of such work, we have received genuine support from NCRI. We thank NCRI for sanctioning this project to HALE.
We are now submitting the report along with our experiences in implementing this project. We believe that this report, with its summarized information, shall be very useful.
I. Name of the Institution: Haritha Association for Learning from Environment (HALE), Palvancha, Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh.
II. Title of Project:
“Production of Bamboo Products and their Marketing as a set of Activities to Illustrate the Important concepts in school curriculum up to 10th grade”.
III. Duration of the Project:
2008 to 2011
V. Main Objectives:
i. Set up a bamboo nursery
ii. Set up a unit for production and marketing of bamboo products within the school premises in the operation of which students and teachers take an active part.
iii. Critically observe the various processes in the units and correlate these with different concepts in different subjects in the main stream school curriculum up to 10th grade.
iv. Organize the work of the students in the units as a set of experiments to illustrate different concepts of various subjects in the main stream school education
v. Establishment of a Teacher Training Resource Centre for the use of productive activities as experiments to teach existing main stream school curriculum and exploring the benefits in improving the economics and in imparting living values through the above productive activities which lead to Gandhian Basic Education
VI. Status before sanction of project:
Prior to the sanction of the current project, productive activities at our school were based on gardening and other day-to-day activities. Additionally, there was also a workshop but its scope and functioning were limited to developing bamboo as a structural element in house construction.
VII. How the project has benefited the villages / communities:
A bamboo nursery has been established under this project. A bamboo workshop for development of teaching and learning material (TLM) and household decorative items has also been established with the necessary machinery. Attempts are under progress to correlate bamboo activities with main school curriculum. The foregoing changes, brought about by the project, have in our opinion, benefited the pre-primary, primary, and high school level education. Also, they have resulted in providing livelihood.
VIII. The type of beneficiaries and the number of beneficiaries:
Students, teachers, parents, other residents of local communities, and artisans have benefited from this project. Over 1000 students, about 132 teachers, more than 70 schools in Khammam district, over 20 artisans, and more than 20 other local residents have benefited.
By the end of this project, it is estimated that the benefits which will arise out of the completed Bamboo TLM with the related manuals and video lessons, along with bamboo activities being correlated to main school curriculum, will be of immense value not only to the local communities but to school education anywhere. In this context, it will also help to strengthen the concepts of holistic education and Nai Talim.
IX. Achievements:
1. Bamboo Nursery
A shade net chamber has been erected for a nursery mainly for bamboo saplings. Nursery has been started with 2,000 bamboo saplings. 500 Bamboo saplings were given to Girijana Prajala Seva Sangham in Chintur village; these were given as part of our arrangement with Andhra Pradesh Technology Development and Promotion Centre (APTDC) .
5,000 Bamboo saplings have been sent to Khammam Rural mandal for plantation. This way, marketing activity has begun in the Nursery Unit as well.
We distributed Bamboo and other Plants to 52 Schools in our (Khammam) District from our nursery unit.
2. Bamboo Workshop
Bamboo workshop has been reset and improved by obtaining …Circular-Angular-Cutting Machine, Planer with Attachments, Stand-Drilling Machine with Attachments, and Blade-Grinder with Attachments etc. Additionally, several hand tools were secured to set up and develop resource centre or workshop for implementation of the activities of this project. Resource centre (workshop) has been brought into use by students and teachers of our school and other schools as well.
3. (Raw) Incense sticks unit
Incense sticks unit was set up, started, and production of 600 kg of sticks has been completed.
100 kg of raw incense sticks were sent to Vetapalem, Prakasam district and 200 kg of raw incense sticks were sent to Eluru, West Godavari district from our Incense Sticks unit. Thus, marketing activity from our Incense Sticks unit has begun.
4.Bamboo Teaching and Learning Material ( Bamboo TLM )
Conception and development of Teaching Learning Material (TLM) kit with bamboo has been started and is currently under progress. Some of the TLM kit items (with bamboo) successfully completed are …Adding Machine “Y”, Shape Makers, Magic Wheel, Quiz Fan, Bamboo Blocks, Place Values, Magic Blow Pipe, Alphabet Maker, Bamboo Beads and Match/Word Maker etc.
We also developed a Manual and a CD for above mentioned Bamboo TLM successfully.
5.Panulathone Pathaalu (Curriculam through Bamboo Productive activities)
We organize the work of the students in the units as a set of experiments to illustrate different concepts of various subjects in the main stream school education. For example…1.From the data of making of raw incense sticks –Statistics. 2.From nursery activities-root systems, wave motion: time period of vibration, phase of vibration, wave length etc.,3.Introduce or acquaintance with the workshop tools like….Ordinary hammer, Hammer with a fork, Dividers, Tin-Cutter, Hack-saw, Hack-saw blade, Vice, Multipurpose tool, Hand saw, Chisel, Screw driver, Poker and Drill bit etc.
We also developed a Manual and a CD for above mentioned lessons successfully.
X. Participation of staff, students and community.
2008-2009
A total of 15 staff members, 28 students, 19 nearby community members, 22 teachers from other schools have input considerable time in this project. Some of the teaching staff earned some honorarium; similarly local women and members of minority communities also obtained some livelihood by virtue of this project.
Students of our school worked for a total of 1,214 hours; such hours were obtained by a regular ½ hour out of every school day during the academic year. They were paid Rs.3, 968/- by Haritha Ecological Institute for their work contribution; students used these earnings to meet some of their educational needs.
2009-2010
During the said academic year 60 students in 12 productive divisions worked for 3,375.30 hours. The value calculated for this work was Rs. 6,629/-; the work share of the incense sticks division was 1,214 hours with a value of Rs.3, 968/-. All this was done by allocation of a 40-minute (actual time input = ½ hour) period on each school day throughout the year. Students were paid their respective productive work value enabling them to meet some of their educational needs.
An outstanding example is that of one of our students who fulfilled some of his sister’s educational needs (their father being an alcoholic and, therefore, not fulfilling his role as a father).
Our students got a prize in district level science fair in Mathematical modeling category for “statistics through making of raw incense sticks”.
2010-2011
This academic year 34 students in 15 productive divisions worked for 1708 hours. The value calculated for this work was Rs. 1715.50/- . All this was done by allocation of a 40-minute (actual time input = ½ hour) period on each school day throughout the year (up to 5th of March, 2011) . Students were paid their respective productive work value enabling them to meet some of their educational needs.
Students learned, through the above productive activities, to maintain their own accounts, to work together as a team, to write their project reports, to relate a few concepts of school syllabus, and develop responsible behavior.
XI. Events which have been held.
1. Teachers’ workshops/Orientation programs
i. Orientation Workshop for Teachers held on Nov 23rd, 2008:
A total of 70 teachers from 8 mandals of Khammam district and from five other districts representing a total of 30 schools or organizations attended this workshop. Additionally, eleven technicians and resource persons also participated. The idea of making teaching and learning material came out. Smt. Smitha Chug, Joint secretary , MORD gave guidance to this project.
ii. Orientation Workshop for Teachers held on 21st June, 2009:
Out of the total 144 participants, 63 were teachers, 26 were students, 8 were resource persons, 7 were technicians, 6 were workers, and 34 were other individuals. These participants came from 56 places representing 48 schools and 8 organizations; they represented 4 districts of Andhra Pradesh.
In this workshop primary focus was on Creation of teaching material (for school curriculum) from making and using of Bamboo products. Our local (Kothagudem) MLA Sri. K.Sambasiva Rao visited and appreciated the method “Curriculum through productive activities”.
iii. Orientation Workshop for Teachers held on 2nd October, 2010:
Out of the total 235 participants, 110 were teachers and individuals, 120 were students, 5 were resource persons and technicians. These participants came from 34 schools and 8 organizations; they represented 3 districts of Andhra Pradesh. A teachers’ forum formed on that day.
In this workshop primary focus was on…
1. A discourse on Gandhian thoughts on education was made.
2. Some reports on productive activities were presented by children and teachers.
3. Development of techniques and identified examples to illustrate important concepts in school curriculum from making Bamboo products. .
2. Annual events
i. Annual event on 3rd Jan, 2009:
400 representatives from 22 schools and organizations participated in this program. More than 50 bamboo exhibits were displayed by different schools. Children and teachers showed lot of interest in making and displaying.
ii. Annual event on 28th Feb, 2010:
306 representatives from 39 schools and organizations participated in this programme. More than 80 bamboo exhibits were displayed.
iii. Annual event on 26th Jan, 2011:
515 people (350 Students, 55 Teachers and 110 Individuals from local community) 18 schools and 07 organizations participated in this programme.
XII. Other noteworthy
a. 4 representatives from HALE participated in the Bamboo workshop held at Attappadi, Palakkad district, Kerala between August 17 and 21,2009. This workshop was conducted by the Institute for Societal Advancement (ISA), which was founded and run by Dr. Shivanandan, Retired IAS officer. Since this was a bamboo-related workshop, representatives from HALE were sent, so that the current project would be benefited.
b. As part of A.P. flood relief, in the second week of November, 2009, two bamboo sheds were constructed in association with APTDC in ‘Sunkeshula’ village of Kurnool district, A.P.
XIII. Problems and hindrances which we faced during the project implementation:
Owing to high cost of acquiring bamboo and difficulty in the marketing of incense sticks, we could not create confidence in our nearby community that incense-stick making is a viable economic activity.
Traditional bamboo products could not be made a part of this project.
Jaihind
