GKV students get scholarships for higher education

Congratulations to  E.Esakkiselvi and M. Pathirakali, from the first batch of Gita Krishnamurthy Vidyalaya  (https://gkvschool.org)  students(class of 2019- 10th Standard) , for being awarded the Hemlata 100 (https://hemlata.ch/h100/) scholarship that  will support their tuition and other expenses for their education in an accredited college in any part of India and for their choice of graduate studies!

Esakkiselvi a student of GKV from 2012(4th standard) was the school topper in the 10th board exams in 2019  . Pathirakali, a  GKV student  from 2010(2nd standard) , stood school second in the 10th. They joined Jayendra HSc ( https://jayendragoldenjubilee.com) to complete their 11th and 12th and continued their good performance. They were recommended from the School for this Scholarship and came out successfully in the selection process.

We do hope this will be a harbinger of things to come for GKV Students and act as a stimulus for them to do well in their studies.

 

Education during the pandemic

GKV, like all schools nationwide,  stopped functioning normally around March 2020 ( AY 2019/20 ) and has been unable to resume , even as of May 2021. One full Academic Year 2020/21 was ineffectual due to the pandemic. Online classes conducted , via Zoom, by our partner school Jayendra for their students  has been made available to GKV students from 6th to 10th standard. The GKV teachers support Jayendra teachers in conducting these classes. Of course the students of GKV   do not have typically have computers with Internet facilities at home  – they make do with smartphones with data connectivity. The attendance and participation of the students in these online classes has been about 70% or so . 

For Classes 1 to 5, Whatsapp is the main application used  for teaching and learning. Teachers from GKV are highly committed to do their best with this constraint and send assignments to children to work on at home and submit for correction. For the kindergarten  school children also they adopt this approach.

While the above is hardly a substitute for attending school, this at least keeps them in touch with their studies and will enable them to  make up when they start attending school in person, hopefully, in the later part of the Academic Year 2021/22. 

All our teachers and staff are continuing as before and their remuneration is being met. Teachers who are not dependent on public transport (those who are staying in nearby areas) come to the School to utilize the computer facilities, as needed, to provide lessons to the students, electronically or live on Zoom. Though our students do not have computers at home, they were exposed to Computers when they were attending Classes in school and this to a great extent facilitates our providing remote learning to them. The outcome is not, however, equal to in-class learning with teachers but this will facilitate them to a great extent when normal functioning of School resumes as they will not be out of touch with studies!

There are limitations to these approaches and improvisations are done to the extent feasible to provide the best possible learning outcome to students and to keep them in touch with curricular discipline. Our passionate and diligent teachers are committed to working closely with the students once in person classes resume to help them catch up with their learning. 

All the students are continuing their education and we are glad to share the encouraging  situation that there are no drop outs. It is unfortunate that pandemic has disproportionately impacted the economically disadvantaged in all facets of life including education!

 

Class of 2020

 29  students  of GKV, comprising of 17 girl and 12 boys,  passed out  from the 10th standard of GKV in the Academic Year 2019/20.  Out of these, 17 Girls and 5 Boys wished to continue their Higher Secondary studies and all of them got admissions in Jayendra Higher Secondary School, our Partner School. The remaining 7 Boys joined  Polytechnic Courses as they wished to acquire trade skills and join the work stream. 

In the first batch of students who completed their 10th in 2019, 16 of the students joined  Jayendra and they are now in 12th Standard.

Our Trust will provide assistance to a total of 38 Students to pursue their education till 12th Standard. This support will facilitate them to pursue their ambitions further, either to continue their studies in Graduate Courses  or in suitable professional training courses to enable them enter the job market.

Construction of additional classrooms

Presently we have up to Class 10 and we continue to have one Section in each Class from LKG onwards. In the  Academic Year 2018-19, our first batch of Class 10 passed out and the results were outstanding. All the Girls got through and almost all of them secured over 70% in the Board Examinations. Out of the total of 34, only one boy missed out narrowly.

As the school is currently up to 10th standard we counselled all of the 33 students to pursue higher education and reach out to us in case any financial support was required to do so. We decided to support all the 18 students(16 girls , 2 boys) , who  got admission on merit ito 11th standard in Jayendra Higher Secondary School. We are now supporting them for studies in Class 11 and 12 at a cost of around, approximately, Rs 400,000/, per annum, by scholarships. Many of our generous well wishers came forward to support this initiative.

As is well known job and career prospects are very limited if one does not puruse at least a vocational course in a polytechnic after 10th standard.  However, we were delighted to learn that most of these students and their parents want to puruse higher education and aspire to complete 12th standard and a college degree.   It is the same for the students of 10th standard in the academic year  2019-20,  We plan to offer similar support, as needed, to them as well with the patronage of our Donors.

However, from a longer term perspective,  it was felt prudent to develop GKV into a Higher Secondary School .  Towards this we decided to take  up construction of the balance  6 rooms, 3 in each wing, in the first floor of the building .  Given that the cost of construction continues to escalate it was felt that it is better to construct sooner than latter and mobilise funds from donors to supplement the trust’s resources. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the scheduled start of construction in April 2020 had to be postponed . We  hope to start the same in the September 2020 timeframe with a goal of completing at least one wing by March/April 2021. 

In addition to the physical furnished classrooms  we , of course, plan to add qualified and committed teaching staff for the Higher Secondary Section and well equipped separate  laboratories for Physics, Chemistry and Biology.   We look forward to  support from individual well wishers as well as from institutions to be able to achieve this!

Our first Batch of Class 10 students

                            

                                             

                                                                  Outgoing Class 10

Academic Year 2018/19 is a land mark year for GKV, which started in a small rented space back in 2009 with a little over 100 children in Classes LKG, UKG and 1. GKV is now 550 strong with Classes up to 10 and functions in its own Building.

Our first batch, most of whom have been at the school since the beginning in 2009, did us proud with excellent results in the Tamil Nadu Board Exam ( SSLC ) held in April 2019.  Out of the 34 students, 21 Girls and 13 Boys, 33 came out successful. Even the one Boy who did not make the grade missed it narrowly. First two were girls with  aggregate marks of 94% and 93% . Further 16 Students secured an average of over 70% and 29 of them above 50%.  This is in no small measure due to the passion and perseverance of the teachers of GKV as well as the partner school – Sri Jayendra Golden Jubilee school. We would also like to thank all the donors and well wishers for the generous support during this journey.

It is  heartening to note that all the 33 students are interested in studying further: either completing 11th and 12th and then obtaining a degree or getting a diploma at a polytechnic. While GKV currently does not have the provision of 11th and 12th standard it is the endeavor of the trust to ensure that all of these students are supported financially, if required, to complete the next stage of their education.  We hope to do this with continued support from our well wishers!!