Site visit to CSS Nimmagadda Anandamma Memorial School

By Anuradha Bulusu

Asha for Education, Atlanta (since 2009)

November 21, 2017

I reached CSS around 10 AM following a scheduled appointment with Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Vemuri, Founder of CSS. CSS runs multiple centers, a residential home for girls (Shobhas home), the NAM girls school and a vocational training center. All centers are located in various buildings in Munaganuru village, Hayathnagar (about 25 km from Hyderabad/Secunderabad). I was informed that the land was acquired and buildings constructed through a combination of personal donations from Mrs. Vemuri, CSR funding from Deloitte and numerous private donations. Mrs. Vemuri now lives in a room on top of the home for the most part of the year.

I was greeted at the gate by Mrs. Uma, the house mother (for the girls home and school). I was taken to the Principals office and met Mrs. Usha Kasturi, the new Principal since December 2016 and Ms. Padmavathy, the Class 10 teacher. Asha Stanford has been supporting the same batch of students since Class 4. The student population is a combination of orphans who live in the CSS residential home and girls from low income families (maids, auto drivers, daily laborers) and from the highly-marginalized Banjara (Lambada) Community native to AP/Telangana. The men rarely work with most being alcoholics and do not provide for the family. In many instances, the mothers too are alcoholics. I chatted with the Principal and Class Teacher regarding the challenges faced in teaching children from very low-income families where emotional issues abound. Both acknowledged that many girls come from broken homes or families with lot of turmoil. The staff of CSS act as counselors in addition to just teaching and many times help girls stay in the home until the situation at home calms down. The principal Mrs. Usha Kasturi informed me that she draws on her has previous experience working in a school for the blind when dealing with emotional issues faced by the girls.

Mrs. Vemuri joined us shortly and we started the tour of the school. I was taken to Class 10 where we were all greeted enthusiastically by the girls. A Telugu lesson on Ramayana was in progress. I was introduced to the girls and asked to interact with them. I picked out girls at random around the class, asked them to introduce themselves in English, who their favorite character in Ramayana was and describe why they liked them. Many girls raised their hands and spoke to me in clear English. There was little hesitation and shyness as one girl after another raised their hands and told me about their families, why they liked Rama, Seetha or Hanuman etc. One girl told me, I come from a rural village and my mother is an agricultural worker and I am very proud that my mother works in agriculture. The entire class started clapping as she said this. Another girl told me she wanted to study to be a CA (similar to CPA) while another wanted to study geology. I was happy to note that the girls appeared to have independence of thought and not say the typical I want to study engineering/IT that seems to be the mantra brainwashed into most of the current batch of high school students (in Hyderabad at least).

With many girls reaching Class 10, the constant threat of marriage is high among the girls. I was introduced to a girl who was married earlier this year despite protests from CSS. The staff of CSS persuaded her in-laws to allow her to continue Class 10 after marriage and she was finally allowed to continue her education. Mrs. Vemuri spoke to the girls about not dropping out of school due to marriage and told them about the various opportunities available to them after class 10 etc.

For well performing students, CSS has tie ups with local colleges who provide subsidized tuition. The school primarily relies on donations to fund the higher education of well-performing students. Tuition is also collected from the students families in whatever amount they can afford to spare. I met two girls one who finished B.Tech in Computer Science from Siddhartha College of Engineering and another who is currently in the final year. Both these girls were residents of the home. Two other girls from CSS home are currently pursuing MS in USA. CSS has similar plans for the current Class 10 girls. The cost per child to pursue engineering is ~Rs. 30,000 per year while a nursing degree costs ~Rs. 50,000 per year. For girls who are not interested/incapable of higher education, the school provides vocational training to help them get employed.

I was taken to the other classes and met with couple other teachers. A social science teacher of Class 9 had recently submitted his PhD thesis while a B.Tech graduate was teaching Math to class 8 students. I enquired about how low performing students are helped with their studies. I was told that while no additional tuitions are provided to the children after school, the teachers conduct special classes and give extra homework to some students to help them get up to speed. The school appears to be making efforts to hire good quality teachers but teacher turnover is a big challenge according to Mrs. Vemuri. Teachers leave the school even if they are paid Rs. 500 more in another school. Current monthly salaries for the Pre-Primary teachers are Rs.5000, Primary teachers Rs. 7000 and ~Rs. 11000-13000 for the high school teachers. The Principal is paid Rs. 25000.

There are currently 575 girls in the school. CSS does not provide mid-day meals except to students of the residential home due to lack of regular funds. CSS is in talks with the Akshaypatra Foundation (which provides subsidized/free meals) but they are not currently serving the area where the school is located. The school is equipped with a computer lab with computers donated by the Shreya Foundation and Infosys which donated used computers. They also provided a teachers salary for 1 year. I met with the current computer science teacher who trained with the previous CS teacher. She informed me that she provides training to students from classes 4th to 9th in MS office skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and multimedia skills. She also follows Computer Masti, a syllabus developed at IIT Bombay for school children. The school has a reasonably well stocked library and projects room to display students projects. There appears to be an emphasis on encouraging reading English and Telugu books.

Overall, it appears that CSS NAM school is doing a very good job at educating orphaned girls and children from underprivileged families. The girls appear confident and hopeful about their future and seem to do well in their studies. They have good English speaking skills. Couple challenges faced by CSS that need to be considered:

1. Increase teacher salaries to minimize teacher turnover.

2. Provide ancillary funds for maintenance of the school and residential home. For e.g. the solar water heaters have broken down. The cost of repairs/replacement is ~1.8 lakhs that CSS has to figure out before winter sets in. Paying electricity bills are also a constant challenge.

3. An immediate challenge especially with high school girls is an ability to envision a future outside of their circumstances and continue their education. Asha Stanford should consider providing funds to conduct field trips in an around Hyderabad such as the Birla Planetarium, Snow world, Mindspace Industrial Park etc. It will certainly help open their world view and help them dream big.

The CSS NAM Girls School Building

Some Class 10 girls (supported by Asha Stanford)

Mrs. Vijayalakshmi Vemuri talking to the Class 10 girls about the need to pursue higher education and gainful employment.

Few paintings by girls/women from the vocational training center after 3 months of training. An organization called CraftGen provides the training with funds provided by an MNC.

The school library