(Empowering the Community )
 
‘Aangan’ a project started under the aegis of Gurukul Vidyapeeth Trust
for the development of Rural area adjoining the College Campus. It is
established with a vision of educating and empowering the economically
weaker members of the community. The number of programmes are being
organized under this project:
A. IT Awareness Programme:
It has now shown fruition in successful completion of two batches of
Computer Courses and the third being in progress. The students, taking
benefit of the programme, are the wards of poor landless farmers, petty
workers and the skilled-workers but devoid of education. 60 Students, since
the inception of the programme, have been awarded the certificates.
B. Education for all:
Another simultaneous drive, to extend a helping hand towards the poor
village dwellers is in progress. The programme- EACH ONE TEACH ONE
promises education to even those poor students, who cannot afford the
expenses of the private institutions and thus go without higher education in
their lives. Maintaining the slogan, our school wing is providing education
at a bare minimum fee, and even waving it off to those who cannot afford at
all.
C: Health Awareness:
To ensure awareness and participation in the health community, the institute
exercises regular visits to the surrounding villages and colonies interacting
with the people on one-o-one basis and encouraging them to take the
benefits of the programme also organizes medical camps with the help of
reputed Hospitals.
The management is quite optimistic and promising to quicken its efforts
while regulating the movement through other areas of human-upliftment by
enabling the weaker to board the mainstream.
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This program aims at serving the underprivileged children of India especially the city and neighboring areas. Most of the students come from economically challenged backgrounds.
The corporate social responsibility of the organization formed the foundation features of the programme some of these features are:
1. NEED OF EDUCATIONAL AWARENESS IN THE RURAL AREAS OF PUNJAB & THE PERSPECTIVE STEPS
2. FORMULATED TO MOVE IN THIS DIRECTION
3. EDUCATING WOMEN CHILD OF RURAL BACKGROUND
4. ARRANGING FINANCIAL HELP FOR ECONOMICAL WEAKER SECTIONS TO PURSUE HIGHER EDUCATION
5. FREE EDUCATION FOR CANDITATES BELONGING TO BELOW POVERTY LINE FAMILIES
EVENING CLASSES FOR THE FOURTH CLASS EMPLOYEES OF THE ORGANISATION
THE RATIONALE BEHIND INITIATING THIS PROGRAMME
Gurukul Educational and charitable trust has been quite aware of its responsibilities towards the society and the CEO Mr Manmohan Kumar Garg is a man who carries a vision to bring about a difference in the society by imparting quality education to not only the middle and upper class but also the weaker sections of the society.According to a study done by the aspiring research team of this organization certain facts were discovered which according to Mr Garg and his team were quite grave and needed attention by educational organizations like their owns.
They discovered that our country India has completed 62 years of her independence and in every walk of life, we find Indians on the top. For example, earlier in sports we found Indians winning only in cricket, but now we have been captivating other sports like Chess, Boxing, and Badminton etc. But, have we achieved the milestone which was kept by our freedom fighters to be the perfect nation? The reality is more than 60% people of India are not developing with India. People are unemployed, poor and dying with hunger. And, such conditions are increasing corruption, terrorism and giving the birth to dirty politics.
Thus, the change that Mr Garg want in India is that India should attain 100% literacy. Many think that the negative points in India are: Terrorism and Politics. But, we have to see this from a different view. People become terrorists because they are unemployed and unemployed because they are illiterate. Secondly, Indians has dirty politics because Indians are illiterate and are not able to distinguish, what is right and what is wrong. Similarly, corruption, social evils and even overpopulation can be controlled by gaining 100% literacy. So, to gain 100% literacy: every educational institution should make their small bits of efforts.
Gurukul Vidyapeeth wants to set an example by making a revolutionary change in the education field by not only providing free and economical primary education but has also commenced certain very beneficial schemes for the underprivileged in the field of higher education.
Another major reason responsible for low literacy rate in India which Gurukul team investigated was the high drop out rate of students studying in class 8th and 10th.This net drop out rate is 39%.There are vast differences within states and between social groups,with very low rates of enrollment reported for socially disadvantaged groups such as scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.50 % of scheduled caste and 56% of scheduled tribe children drop out of school.Only 7% of rural students of India who go to 8th and 10th move on to higher education from rural areas.
RURAL PUNJAB SCENARIO
There are major deficiencies of teachers in most of the rural schools This happens because the students from rural schools do not make it in the merit list for admission. Situation is no better in other universities of the state. There are only 4% students from rural areas in the universities where as 60% of the population resides in rural areas. Punjab occupies 16th position in Literacy in the country.
The major thrust should be to improve the infrastructure for education in the villages so that the youth can get a good quality of education to make them fit enough to be competitive and eligible for various types of jobs with the govt. or in the private sector.
The budget allocation for education should be increased substantially. Teachers and education department officers should be made accountable. Primary education should be strengthened. Education should be decentralized and placed under block samities.
NGOs like the JSWA should step into this domain. He also emphasized on the urgent need for a social revolution in our rural areas to tackle some of the social problems like drug addiction, female feticide, extravagant spending for the weddings.
Dr. Sucha Singh Gill of Punjabi University stated that lack of supervisory and monitoring mechanism has made rural schools non functional. The worst affected are the educationally backward districts of Mansa, Bathinda, Mukatsar and Tarantarn. 51 out of 53 govt secondary schools are without Principals. 74 out of 83 govt high schools are without head masters. The private schools charge heavy fees, which students from poor families cannot afford. Consequently there is a high drop out rate amongst students from rural schools. Contribution of rural areas for higher education is almost negligible.
It has been surveyed that education is a key growth driver but during the last about three decades it was being consistently ignored by the successive governments in Punjab. In 1980, about 22 per cent of the Punjab budget was allocated to education which had now shrunk to about 12 per cent. This has led to the collapse of education, particularly rural education, and emergence of commercially oriented private players in education. At the present level of costs, nearly 45 per cent of rural people cannot afford the cost of general higher education. The proportion of rural population in Punjab is 66 per cent but the share of rural students in the universities of Punjab is around 4 per cent and that in the higher professional education their share is only 3.7 per cent. There is thus a clear cut exclusion of rural students from higher education in Punjab. Nearly 70 per cent of rural households and 90 per cent of the rural agricultural labour-households do not have even one person with matric qualification.The educational institutes have to make an effort to bring about a change socially and work for the upliftment and betterment of higher education scenario of rural Punjab.
FEATURES OF THE PROGRAM
The program was formulated for the betterment of the weaker and underprivileged section of the society in order to make an overall change in the literacy rate of the state
As the above survey has proved that the higher education statistics of students is declining day by day,Gurukul Vidyapeeth is an educational group which has been a good socially responsible organization with a specially assigned team to work and fulfill the social commitment of the organization.
NEED OF EDUCATIONAL AWARENESS IN THE RURAL AREAS OF PUNJAB & THE PERSPECTIVE STEPS FORMULATED TO MOVE IN THIS DIRECTION
One of the major features of the each one teach one program is to spread awareness about education. The program is aimed at understanding the importance of higher education for the rural youth, women and disadvantaged groups for the rural reconstruction and to formulate strategies needed to enhance awareness among the rural youth, women and disadvantaged groups and also to draw ideas on the feasible methodologies for to realise this objective.
Many constructive ideas generated through our research which will help identify the relevant areas of rural higher education. Some of the ideas, which emerged after our research are:-
(1) Establishing career guidance cells at village level
(2) Organising youth camps and exhibitions and making high-school students of rural higher education; aware
(3) Preparing suitable audio-visual presentations and using them by organizing camps.for students, youth and parents as well;
(4) Planning and conducting a survey to identify youth, women and the disadvantaged groups that require the awareness;
(5) Conducting awareness programmes on higher education among parents and elders of the village;
(6) Establishing women career guidance cells in the neighbouring villages
(7) Impart skills that promote traditional village level crafts along with the rural higher education skills.
Our team identified various groups through which the awareness could be brought in as
- Youth associations which will involve participation of college students
- Primary and secondary schools
The following programmes were identified that could be taken up that help in enhancing skill development among rural youth:
- To study the local skill needs of each village and to promote skills that can be connected to those needs.
- To design pamphlets, placards, display boards, cultural programmes and meetings and campaigns that bring awareness.
- To identify local resources and skills in demand to be adapted in Punjab education.
- To bring awareness among parents also along with children.
- To involve various government and non government agencies in the entire process of awareness and implementation of programmes.
EDUCATING WOMEN CHILD OF RURAL BACKGROUND
The best way of bringing in empowerment to women is providing them proper education
Our CEO Mr. Garg strongly believes that if woman is educated, the entire family is educated. He is a strong protagonist of women education and has always been on the fore front to help those in need.
Mr Garg added that the overall literacy percentage in the Punjab is 75.63% and that the women literacy is 63.55%. Comparing the literacy rate in rural and urban areas, he said that the former lag behind in education as compared to the latter. The per capita income of men and women in rural areas is rupees 220 and 120, respectively as compared to rupees 320 and 250 in urban areas. This, he said, shows the bias against the women folk who constitute nearly half of the entire population. The women's contribution in families, agriculture and in other fields is significant. The Gurukul team believes that education needs to be made out to girl children, particularly in rural areas. He hopes that the College will produce brilliance in due course and said that Punjab Technical University will be glad to provide the needed support.
Our organization has already organized certain camps with our team members going in different areas around our campus in Punjab. More of female members of our team are sent at these camps .This initiative under each one teach one program has brought in immense improvement in the rate of girl students taking up higher education.
ARRANGING FINANCIAL HELP FOR ECONOMICAL WEAKER SECTIONS TO PURSUE HIGHER EDUCATION
Gurukul Vidyapeeth has and is still working towards encouraging parents to send their children to pursue further education that is higher education .Most of the people in rural areas of Punjab do not encourage their children to pursue their graduation or post graduation because of the high fee structure in most of the colleges. For such families Gurukul Vidyapeeth had been very considerate and have given them financial help by arranging funds and loans from banks and other sources at very low rate of interest.
EVENING CLASSES FOR THE FOURTH CLASS EMPLOYEES OF THE ORGANISATION
Our organization has been providing free classes to the fourth class employees like peons, gardeners, drivers etc .These classes include computer awareness classes, basic English speaking classes and many more. These free classes have not only helped in spreading useful knowledge among these employees but have also helped in spreading awareness and knowledge of educational need among their family members.
FREE EDUCATION FOR CANDITATES BELONGING TO BELOW POVERTY LINE FAMILIES
Gurukul has taken the initiative of sponsoring the complete education of candidates interested in pursuing their graduation and post graduation .These courses include BBA, BCA ,MBA and other degrees. Not only this, the families, which are interested in educating their children further and are short of funds are assured for free higher education to their children.
The members of all the departments of Gurukul Vidyapeeth have resolved that each member of the various departments will actively work to help in educating at least one poor child in his neighborhood.
"All the faculty members and students will try to highlight the importance of primary education in their surrounding area and a comprehensive program will be framed for observing National Education Day involving seminar, essay writing competition, workshop on banners and slogan writing covering the importance of national literacy programs and policies initiated by the Government of India," said a faculty member at Gurukul Vidyapeeth.
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