Open Kindergarten Centres in 40 villages in 2013

HLC started in Kyathanahalli village in Mandya in 2011. The first year was not encouraging, with just 17 children in a village as big as Kyathanahalli. However, the management, HLC staff and the teacher Latha didn’t lose hope. They started to work proactively within the community and included them in the celebrations and other programs organized by the company.

2012 was the start of the growth story. With children in the previous year showing strong learning outcomes and added effort at enrollment by the teacher, the number of children increased by 100% to 34 children and a second teacher was added. By 2014, the enrollment has grown to 74 children with 4 teachers. The growth rate gave insights of how it would be in coming years not only in Kyathanahalli but across other centres too. This success story is largely due to effective community involvement by the teachers and the learning outcomes of the children.

Latha is today the Centre Leader effectively managing the Centre and the 3 other teachers who work with her. Parents take pride in their children, since they are ahead of their peers studying in other schools and proudly participate in all programs organized by HLC. The teachers too are happy for the teaching opportunity provided, that gives them great recognition within their community and for the continuous training provided by HLC that enables them to get better every year.

Hadadi is a village in Davanagere district of Karanataka where HLC started the preschool in 2012 with only 18 children. Lakshmi was the first teacher selected from the community and trained by HLC . Initially the community was not very supportive, because they felt that we were wasting the childrens’ time by teaching through play and other materials that were very different from what they knew. It took two years for the community to appreciate the change in their children and the way they learn. In 2013 numbers increased to 42 children and two more teachers Kalavathi and Geetha joined to take care of different age levels. With the teachers growing in skill through the training they receive and the children enjoying the fun and activity based learning, HLC is today a vital part of the Hadadi community with 62 children enrolled in 2014.

These are just two stories of success as we celebrate the 4^th year of HLC with preschools now running in 125 villages in 3 Districts of Mandya, Davangere and Shimoga, with 4000 children enrolled and 250 young local women selected and trained to be preschool teachers. Slowly but steadily HLC is moving towards its dream of taking good quality preschool education to rural India and at the same time creating a pool of talented teachers who are strongly committed to improving the education in their communities.

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