Eureka SuperKidz
Reaching the poorest. Providing the best.
Innovative and well-structured village education centres providing high quality education inputs in Tamil, English, Math, Science and pre-primary, to 75000 children in nearly 1000 villages in Tamilnadu.
Need
Parents play a huge role in a child’s learning. Parents who are better off immerse their children in a learning environment right from birth whereas children from poor, marginalized families start life with huge disadvantages. The learning quality in Govt pre-schools and schools that they go to is hardly adequate. These children grow up in an environment with no books, no toys and no one to read out to them! Their parents, being poor and illiterate, are unable to help after-school, unable to gauge what the child is learning or finding difficult, nor provide any learning resources at home. Poor children end up without basic literacy and numeracy skills despite the years in school. ASER studies show that 99.5% children go to school in Tamilnadu but, sadly only 32.3% children in Std 5 can read std 2 text. While only 14.2% can divide!
Several studies show that good after school support can compensate for the many gaps in a child’s environment. Poor parents also recognize the need for after-school support and are found willing to to pay Rs 30-50 per month to send their children to an ‘evening tuition center’. Yet, less than 15% villages in TN have after-school centers. Where present, these centres have been found to be of poor quality – with one untrained teacher handling 50-60 children from Std 1 to Std 10.
Eureka SuperKidz project addresses the need for good quality academic support to poor children to improve their Language (Tamil & English), Math & Science learning.
A typical SuperKidz village
PP.Mottur village in Kaveripakkam Block is a Dalit village. 3 local teachers (Eureka Teachers) – Vimala, Thenmozhi and Girija, all of them in their early 20s, have been identified. All three have completed a teacher training courses while 2 of them are pursuing their graduation through correspondence.
Vimala handles the Kindergarten centre where 10 children in ages 3-5 attend. She conducts 2 hours of fun activities for them starting at 4:30pm. The class begins and ends with songs and action rhymes. She then conducts group activities for langauge and cognitive skills. The children then work independently on activities like colouring, drawing, threading the beads and so on. Vimala spends time with each child helping them learn the alphabet in Tamil & English, counting, picture description etc.
Thenmozhi and Girija run centres for Std 1-3 & Std 4-6 everyday, respectively, for 3 hours starting at 4:30pm. But children start coming to the centre even before the teachers arrive and keep themselves engaged by reading books. Classes are conducted in the open, usually in front of Thenmozhi or Girija’s thatched huts. When it rains, the classes shift inside the Govt School located in the village.
Outside Thenmozhi & Girija’s huts, a skill chart is hung. Both of them update the skill chart each month with ticks. This chart helps them track what every child knows and what skills the child has to acquire.
Everyday, Thenmozhi conducts group and whole class activities in Tamil, English and Math. She also identifies children who need additional help. Similarly, Girija covers Tamil, English, Math and Science. |
