ABDF

Each August, the Ministry of Education gives a nationwide test to all fifth graders. In actuality, it’s a poverty eradication program. Those that get above a certain score, which changes year by year depending on how many students are tested, receives 500 rupees (about $4.50) a month through the rest of their academic career; this amount goes up to 3,000 rupees a month for those who get into university. Given that a student can have an additional 13 years of education, over the long term this can mean a lot of money. The money is meant to be spent on school supplies and uniforms, and those from families above a certain income level are ineligible.

Needless to say that the exam is very difficult; it’s designed to winnow out all but the best students. If you are a child living along the coastal strip of Batticaloa, you have a lot of advantages; schools are much better equipped, and there are many after-school “tuition” classes you can take to bone up on the exam. As a result, town-living students get almost 100% of the money.

On the other hand, if you live on the inland side of the lagoon (aka: the former LTTE-held area), you have no advantages whatsoever. The schools are in shambles, there are no tuition classes (the teachers that teach them all live on the coastal strip), and families are all impoverished rice farmers who wouldn’t be able to afford tuition classes even if there were available. Additionally many families in this area don’t see the value of an education, being uneducated themselves.

The result is that, at our project site, Navatkadu Vidyalayam (School), no child has passed the exam in over 12 years. This has an unfortunate snowball effect; since no one has passed in more than a decade, parents don’t think it’s possible and so don’t encourage their kids. It only reinforces the lack of education in the area. This project seeks to help change that.

(Incidentally, Navatkadu is the site of one of our water tank projects.)

The exam is graded on a points system; 100 points is considered an excellent showing, although the cut-off for the money hovers around 150 points. In Navatkadu, the students usually average around50-60 points.

ABDF and the schools’ principal and teachers have come up with a pilot program to improve the testing scores of the schools’ 49 fifth graders. As there are no tuition classes available in Navatkadu, we’ve decided to make the school on big tuition class. Beginning Monday May 3rd, and lasting until the exams in August, all fifth graders are required to stay after school for two hours every day. For those two hours, their teachers will spend time going over the materials covered by the exams. In addition, we have purchased six published sample exams for the students, so that they also practice test-taking. All of this is being done voluntarily by the teachers.

Once the results are published, sometime in September, ABDF and the school will meet to analyze the results. Everyone realizes that at this late point we probably won’t get any of the students to cross the 150-point mark. But the goal is to help 5-6 students cross 100 points, to raise the overall school average, and maybe even get one student above 150.

Should this program achieve these results, then we will plan for another round next year, starting in January (the start of the new school year) to enable both teachers and students more time. Thus in sense, this year is a trial run. Ultimately, if this program is even more successful next year, we’d like to expand it to cover the tiny hamlets that surround Navatkadu, bringing in their students after school.

We all believe that if students start to show real improvement in their scores, the ripple effect will take over: parents will start to encourage their children, quality teacher recruitment will be easier, and the school will receive more attention and resources.

Update - June, 2010

On June 22nd Project Director Bennett Hinkley visited the school in Navatkadu. The teacher in charge of the project, Mr. Paththinathan, has been working very hard at making the program a success, and thus far parents have been supportive. Continued support for the program in the future will depend on the results of the exam, which takes place in August, with results released in September. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

Update - October, 2010

Well I have some great news to share; it seems that our efforts to increase the testing scores for the exam have been very successful.

The exam was given in mid-August and the results came out last week. Now keep in mind that 100 points is considered a pass, and that our school in Navatkadu hadn’t seen a pass in some 15 years (analysis shows that the average score for the past five years was around 43 points), with the highest score being 92. This year, not only did we get a score over 100 points, but we got SEVEN students scoring above 100, with 122 points being the highest. This represents the highest number of over 100 students in recent memory, at least according to the schools’ principal.

The data and analysis can be found here.

You can read a more in-depth analysis of the test results, and what they tell us, by clicking on this link.

So congratulations to this years’ 5th Grade class on a job well done!

Update - May 12, 2011

As our pilot project in 2010 was so successful (see above for results), we have decided to keep this project going, albeit with a slightly different approach.

This year (2011) there are 67 fifth-graders at Navatkadu. Last years pilot project was a bit overwhelming for some of the students as it involved a lot of work within a short period of time. Thus we have decided to start the tutoring earlier, and reduce the per-week classes to three a week. Rather than cram everything into two months, instruction will take place over the course of 31/2 months. We have also determined which of the test sample packets are the best sample test packets for our purposes, and reduced the materials cost accordingly.

Instructions started on May 12, 2011. The students meet every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 3-4:30 in the afternoon.

Last year the two teachers volunteered their time. These extra classes are a huge amount of work for them, and given their success last year, we felt it reasonable to give them a small monthly stipend of 10,000 rupees ($90) for three months.

We look forward to another successful year for the kids at Navatkadu school!

Update - May 20, 2011

Meet our Fifth Grade teachers!

These two gentlemen are carrying out our 5th Grade Tutoring project.

To your left is K. Pathinathan (Pa-dee-na-dan). Twenty eight years old, Pathin (for short) was born in raised in Navatkadu, and thus is a truly local teacher. He has been teaching since 2007, and at Navatkadu for 2 years. He created the pilot project for this program last year with excellent results. Hence this project is his project.

On the right is K. Thiruchelvam (Tee-ru-chel-vam), who ha also been teaching at Navatkadu for two years, having been a teacher since 2008. Thirty one years old, he hails from Mangikadu, a village some 2 kilometers from Navatkadu, and site of one of our water tanks, and a fence project.

The tutoring program started on May 1st. The 5th grade class is now receiving extra instruction Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 3 to 4:30 PM. This extra tutoring will continue for the next 2 ½ months, until the island-wide 5th Grade Scholar ship exam takes place in mid-August (the government has yet to announce the exact dates).

Despite being rather rushed, with a total of two months extra instruction almost daily, our pilot project last year yielded excellent results. This year we are taking longer, in an effort to take some of the pressure off the kids and allow them more time to digest what they learn.

So good luck to Pathin, Thiruchelvam, and especial to the 5th graders of Navatkadu!

Update - October 10, 2011

We have the results for this years’ 5th Grade Test. I go into an in-depth analysis of the results here, but here’s the nutshell. In general, scores remained flat when compared to last year, and we did not see an overall rise, despite extra time and resources. We did see a dramatic decrease in the lowest score range, but there was no rise in the upper half of scores. Thus, for the reasons outlined in the analysis, we have decided to suspend our support for this project, as we can’t justify the time and expense with negligent benefit. We remain committed to working with Navatkadu Vidyalayam to try and find a way to help the students, but clearly this method is not it.

On Friday the 7th of October, I visited the 5th grade class at the school, in order to thank them for participating, and to announce the results. As it was class time, I wanted to keep things short and sweet. And sweet it was, literally. The entire class was given sweet treats and the kids who scored more than 100 points each received a Toblerone chocolate bar, something they normally can’t afford to buy.

We also announced the top score of 127 points and congratulated Sajitha Thiruchelvam on her success. (Disclaimer: Sajitha is a niece of one of the two project teachers, K. Thiruchelvam.) We also announced that on the following day, Saturday, I was meeting Sajitha and her parents in Batti town for a shopping spree and ice cream.

We met the next morning along with Pathinathan (Navatkadu’s 5th Grade teacher and the other project teacher) and went to Billal's Emporium, the largest clothing shop in town. I told Sajitha and her mom to have a good time, look as long as they want, and pick out some clothes. Dad, typically male, mostly stood there and watched while his wife and daughter had a great time going through most of the inventory of kids’ clothes. Eventually choices were decided upon; a frock, a fancy selva (a sort of baggy-pants and tunic combo frequently worn here), underwear, t-shirts, and a pair of shorts.

We then went to City Shoe Palace for some footwear. Initially they chose a pair of white shoes and sets of white socks, which are standard school wear. While this was very practical, I also wanted Sajitha to buy something fun, so I insisted she choose (without mom) a second par of shoes just for herself. Sajitha happily complied and chose a colorful pair of heeled sandals with silver sequins.

Finally we all repaired to Bombay Sweet House and had faluda, a rose and cardamom flavored milkshake with fruit salad on the bottom.

A good time was had by all, and Sajitha went home with some nice additions for her wardrobe. ABDF would like to congratulate Sajitha, and wish her continued success in her future.

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