:: Education

Women have given top priority to Education - for themselves, their children and adolescents - with special emphasis on girls. Summer camps held in the initial years with the dropout and never enrolled girls were the preparatory steps in this direction. Around the same time the government initiative of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) led to the creation of enabling environment for Sangham women to thrust upon enrolment of children, especially girls into formal schools. Slowly the demand for their literacy also picked up momentum as the Sanghams grew strong enough to identify and address issues of their prime concern. Thus began the interventions towards education of children, adolescent girls and adult women within the project area. These moved from strength to strength over the years and at present the following interventions are in place: Women's Education The need for women's education is addressed in different ways: Village level Adult Learning Centers Periodical Literacy Camps of two to three day duration  Short-term MSKs for adult Sangham women (15days to one month residential courses) Literacy sessions in Sangham meetings and trainings  Focused literacy camps & short term MSKs to members of Federation bodies, issue committees, Resource Group and Elected Women Representatives Facilitating Sangham women to continue their education and appear for examinations through A.P. Open University or get certification through A.P. Open School system Convergent efforts with Department of Adult Education, AP Open School Society Girls' Education The Sanghams play greater role in ensuring children particularly girls to get educated and access child rights. Mahila Sikshana Kendra (MSK) is a one year residential programme to address the educational needs of adolescent girls in a life skill approach. The focus is on child rights and women’s rights with efforts to groom girls into effective leaders. At present there are 16 Mahila Sikshana Kendrams across the project districts. A total of 2277 girls passed out from these MSKs till now. APMSS is also the implementing partner to SSA in the NPEGEL programme in 96 clusters of 7 project districts. Apart from this the various activities towards children and adolescents education include: Identifying and ensuring enrolment of out of school children into schools Ensuring transition of children from AWC to primary schools Enrolment campaigns and active participation in state enrolment drives by the Sanghams and Federations to ensure enrolment and retention of potential dropout girls/children Vidyasadassulu (village level education workshops) and Awareness campaigns to motivate parents and the community to mainstream dropout and never enrolled children into formal education. Motivational camps for children – short term and periodic with focus on retention (dropouts / seasonal dropouts) and enrolment (never enrolled or early dropouts). Disseminating information about various courses that create opportunities for employment and about programmes offered by both government and private institutions. Focused activities towards total enrolment and total literacy Planning and preparing curriculum framework for different educational interventions in accordance with National Curriculum Frame Work Developing appropriate methodology for transaction of the curriculum and preparation of relevant material as and when need is felt Institutional and exposure visits to various institutions for learning about their functioning Capacity building to identified instructors and teachers of various educational interventions « Back