My visit to the IIMPACT Learning Centre at Chandoli (Dist Alwar)

I along with Mrs Nirmala Tandon and Shri P Bhatt Co-coordinator paid a visit to the Chandoli Learning Centre on the forenoon of Wednesday, Dec 7, 2011..
During some two hours that I spent at the Centre, I took the opportunity of interacting with the children, and members of the local community, both men and women, some of whom were the parents or elders of the children at the Centre. The children enrolled numbered 30, 10 of whom are at class 2 level, as many as 17 at class 3 level and 3 at class 4 level who are shortly going to move up to Class 5 ( the highest class up to which a Learning Centre provides education). The attendance on the day of my visit, was almost cent per cent.

While approaching the children, I had in mind some of the observations on the state of literacy in India, as reported in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010 which I had occasion to go through., a few days earlier. According to this report while many children in standard I and II were incapable of reading letters , majority of children in Class V could read only Class II level text.
Measured on this scale, I was pleased to find that the children of Chandoli Centre were far above the all- India levels. Besides, education, I had tried to assess their general awareness , learning of arts and crafts and their interest in music and poetry. In all these areas there was reason for satisfaction . I found them cheerful and friendly, and not shy and withdrawing They presented to me some of the products of the crafts they had learnt. All appeared to be in good health. My only message to them and the organizes is to “keep it up” and improve further
My interaction with a number of village elders , M/s Fakru, Budh Singh, Jammi Khan , Juharu, Hakam, Israj and Ms Narmada, Amridi, Akbari, Saliman was equally rewarding. They appeared very much satisfied with the education as well as personality building of their children at the learning centre. The position , they told me was in severe contrast with the adjoining government schools which suffered form the time old problem of teacher not turning up and often not teaching even when present . Another aspect which I noticed to my great satisfaction that there was complete harmony among children of different communities and stratas of society

While departing, I presented to the Centre a number of general books and learning aids worth Rs 25,000/- gifted by my daughter Dr (Mrs) Shalini Bansil. These can be used to create a nucleus of a Library for the use not only of the children of Centre but the children and even adults of the entire Village. I am sure the management of the Centre would carefully preserve them and make optimum use of them for the inhabitants of Chandoli

R C Mody
Dec 15,2011