HELP EDUCATING 209 SPECIAL CHILDREN IN RURAL INDIA

PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT SURVEY BY ASHA KA JHARNA

In order to gauge the level of engagement our parents have with their special children progress and well being, AKJ organized a field survey of parents where our educators visited homes of around 130 families at Nawalgarh and Sikar during months of July/August 2020. A set of questions were asked as per questionnaire enclosed herewith. Following inferences can be made after studying the responses received:

1. Children’s Attendance:

Parents have started sending their children more regularly to the school. Average attendance is above 75 % in the school. Apart from family function, health issue or non availability of transport, parents do not keep children at home.

2. Hygiene & Cleanliness:        

Children come to school considerably neat and clean now and with clean cloths except for few children. Almost 70% improvement from previous years though needs more improvement.

3. School Uniform:

Now almost all the children come in school uniform on fixed days of week. Children themselves remind the parents about this.                                                    

4. Home work :

Parents in both the groups HI (Hearing & Speech Impaired) and ID (Intellectually Disabled) check homework given to their children regularly. If on any day our educator missed out in writing home work parents would call up the class teacher to know the reason. During the academic session 2019-20, we had introduced student diaries which are a good medium of communication

5. Lunch Box :

80% of the children bring their lunch box from homes which were insisted by AKJ as rights based approach because their non disabled siblings were also carrying these to their schools. Now parents also make extra efforts to visit school for dropping lunch box of their child, in case it was not sent in the morning. This is also a good involvement of parents and shows their enhanced concern.

6. Exposure Trips:

Mostly, younger children parents are not ready to send their children out of the town for overnight stay though they do not mind day trips provided it’s free of cost. Parents do not want to pay for trips whereas somewhat older children parents are willing but again there is money issue. In this aspect, parents’ cooperation is lacking. Almost all of them expect free excursions.

7. Parent Teacher Meet:

Parents’ participation in PTM is an area of concern with around 50% parents attending these. Reasons cited are: Father not available due to livelihood whereas mother unable to come alone due to social barriers.

8. Personal Safety Issue:

During the survey, it was found that most parents were not aware about good & bad (safe & unsafe) touch for their children. They asked AKJ for an awareness session on this subject which was immediately arranged by us at our all three schools. Response from the parents was good with frank and open discussions. Parents asked questions without any hesitation which we usually do not get to see pretty much this region. This was heartening and we offered them our whole hearted support in bringing the issues of safety for vulnerable children.

It can be summarized that families’ engagement and concern for training of their special wards has increased due to our intervention and sustained efforts of AKJ Team.