Education

With the academic year for schools nearing the end, most parents say it is the time for them to empty their pockets. Private unaided schools are hiking their fees for the coming year and expectedly, parents are worried. "They give us no option but to pay the amount," says a parent of a child studying in St Francis de Sales High School (SFS), Electronic city. Resignation appears to be the state of most parents in the city."The management gave me an option of 3 installments instead of 2 installments," says another parent whose child studies in Deccan International School, Padmanabhanagar.…

Citizen Matters is doing a quick dipstick survey to assess trends regarding private school fee changes in Bangalore for 2012-13. We're compiling responses to this survey as part of our inquiry.This survey will take no more than a minute or two. This run of the survey closes Monday Jan 23rd. Please click here to go into the survey.tinyurl.com/7ppucls

850 students from various schools in the state, participated in the state level Abacus competition held on Sunday, 8, January, 2012. Aloha, an organisation that runs advanced abacus and mental arithmetic programme, conducted the competition at Shri Krishna Kalyana Mantapa, Rajaji Nagar. Vaibhav Prakash, attempting the questions in the state level competition. Pic: Deepti Sarma Arithmetic through abacus is a Chinese tool that helps develop the part of brain which controls creativity and integration of information.Each student sported an Aloha Tshirt and was armed with the beaded abacus to solve 60 complex arithmetic Qs in 5 mins! Sounds unattainable? It…

"Fat" is the F - word in a girl's dictionary. I cannot bear that word as it makes me feel so self conscious. When I see my friends called fat I can see their self esteem becoming lower. The kids in my school who are overweight on the other hand are impacted the most when they are teased about the way they look. Once I was so hurt for my friend (who was on the chubby side) so affected by the taunts that she could no longer take it and changed schools. Yet even now in the other school she…

A playschool is meant for kids under the age of 5 and is primarily aimed at providing quality education for kindergarten kids. So if you love kids then starting a playschool may be a good idea. The staff have to be well trained to take care of children.File pic: Padmalatha Ravi So what is the advantage of starting a play school? You get a high degree of satisfaction working with kids and contributing to their growth and development. You help nurture a positive environment for kids where their physical and mental growth takes place seamlessly. As Anjana Sen, Director of…

Warriors civic club of St Marks Public School, JP Nagar, took out an anti-litter walk near their school, early morning on 23rd December. Early morning walkers and joggers frequent the road for their daily shopping of fresh vegetables. Most of them do not carry their own bags, preferring to take home the veggies in thin flimsy plastic packets. WARRIORS CIVIC CLUB of St Marks Public School, JP Nagar, took out an anti–litter walk near their school. Pic: Ravikala P Baliga 52 members of the club, part of Childrens' Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), made informative placards and charts and walked…

In government parlance, ‘merging schools' is the fancy term for shutting them down. The schools are said to be closed down temporarily, and students and teachers are said to be shifted to other schools nearby. But for many children from the closed down schools, education ends just as their school closes. Mariyamma Temple school is being renovated by the temple committee for its own use, even though the school is still with the government. Pic: Navya P K Sathish Dharmaiah, a former 3rd standard student of Mariyamma Temple LP (Lower Primary) school in Tilak Nagar, now works in a mutton…

"India is a land of villages" - is an oft repeated statement. But how many of us living in cities can claim to know about our village life and its culture. It was to address this issue that Sri Kumaran Children's Home organised a Gramothsava at their Mallasandra Campus on November 12th to celebrate Children's day in a unique manner. Images from Gramothsava at Sri Kumaran Childrens Home. Pic: Sridhar.C.R The entire campus looked like a big village fair with visitors treated to various facets of the tradition and culture of village life that is still prevalent in Karnataka. Visitors…

When we come across a unique not for profit organisation, social campaign or initiative, we may be interested in knowing more about its regular activities and achievements. But do we try to find out why and how it started? Irrespective of their size and successes, many civil society organisations (CSO's) or non-governmental organisations (NGO's) have a distinct personal story behind them. Some organisations like Sangama (helps sexual minorities) or the Association of People with Disabilities (APD - supports disabled persons) were started to highlight and counter the challenges or discrimination that an individual or a community experiences and assist them.…

When G S Narayanan, now 80, retired as a DGM from NABARD in 1992, he had already made his retirement plans. His avid interest in listening to lectures on different subjects led to him forming an informal group of people, mostly his neighbours, to come together to listen to an expert talk on a subject. G S Narayanan, at his home in Jayanagar. Pic: Yogaraj S Mudalgi "I shifted to Jayanagar from Basavanagudi in 1979 and I regularly attended programmes of India Institute of World Culture where there would be talks on varied topics. Jayanagar had nothing of that sort…