Asha-SV Focus Group on Working With the Government Meeting Minutes - 07/09/05

Attendees: Sid Shome, Jayakanth, Malathi, Kiran Karadi, Padma Subbaraya, Subashree

Date: 07/09/05

Location: Padma’s house ( Bay Area, CA )

 

Agenda of the meeting:

• Chalk out the objectives of the group
• Chalk out an action plan

 

AFG-govt schools had its first meeting on 7/9/05, Sat afternoon. We had a 4 hour marathon meet :-) The group has decide meet every other Sat (2^nd and 4^th Sat of the month.) Anyone interested in helping out is welcome to join asha-govt yahoo group.  For those intimidated by the 4 hrs meet, we plan to restrict our next meeting to 2 hrs. J

 

 

Meeting started with a discussion of what everyone thought the group should focus on. Most of everyone’s thoughts fell into one of the areas mentioned below:

• Government School Improvements
• Better infrastructure
• Mobilize the community
• Support fellows
• Educational Reform Support  (at govt’ level)
• actively involve in campaigns involving review of government education policies and proposed curriculum frameworks
• Government School Curriculum interventions
• involve ourselves in creating innovative curriculum in different areas such as mathematics, languages, sciences and new areas such as environmental awareness, social issues and health-care

 

 

We also defined the objectives for the group:

1. Steward all SV Govt projects. It is the groups responsibility to ensure the smooth running of all Govt. related projects at SV. Also develop SV guidelines for evaluating Govt’ project.
2. Build knowledge repository. This focus group shall:
1. act as an asha wide repository for Govt’ related projects. The group will familiarize itself with all Asha-wide govt’ related projects.
2. Understand the resistance in Asha projects for working with the govt’, especially formal school projects
3. Understand various education related govt’ schemes available
4. Understand future plans for informal schools
5. Develop AFG-govt website
6. Work with stewards and update websites for Asha-wide Govt’ projects
3. Proactively research Govt’ related issues and understand them

 

 

Main focus of the group for next two months:

• Learn about all existing Govt’ projects at SV and Asha-wide.
• Come up with guidelines for SV for evaluating Govt’ projects.
• Work on creating a website that will act as a repository for all Govt’ related Asha work.

 

Action item for next meeting:

• Prepare a list of all SV and Asha-wide “working with the Govt” projects – Malathi
• Work on an initial draft for the website – Sid Shome
• Briefing of Vivekananda Foundation, Chamarajanagar, Karnataka – Jayakanth
• Briefing of Patri, Uttaranchal – Malathi (time permiting)

 

Other ongoing action items:

• Define various categories of Govt’ scheme, Also understand the role of teaching aids - Jayakanth
• Study Sarva Shiksha Abyayan and give a briefing – Padma

 

How anyone interested can helpout:

• Malathi has prepared a list of all Govt’ projects. We need help going through them and giving a briefing on them to the group. You can pick one of the project from the list. You can find the list under http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asha-govt/files/SV-AFG/
• Work with the group in help define Govt’ project evaluation guidelines for SV

regards,

Padma