2014 RTE Chennai: School liaison work

This year, we worked with several schools to facilitate applications under the Right to Education Act.

Our liaison work was filled with ups and downs. For starters, not a single school expected us to come along and drop off applications this year. I can understand why this surprise would be most unpleasant for several institutions.

Imagine you are running a private school. While you know that the RTE is law, few (if any) parents actually show up on your doorstep. As such, do you really sacrifice 25% of your seats (and thus your income) on the possibility that families may apply?

We found that most schools probably answered "no" to this question. Now, I am not stating this in an accusatory fashion, but rather, practically speaking. When we entered an institution, we went in with the assumption that they very likely filled their seats back during general admissions months ago. Schools that issued scholarships to underprivileged families earlier were even less enthused when they were requested to give up more seats. And so, we knew that if they took any of our applicants, they were probably going to have to literally shove extra desks in the classroom and notify their LKG teachers of the new admissions. If their LKG class wasn't yet full, then I have to think many groaned that they had to set those aside for our candidates.

Thus, the first part of work as a liaison was delivering the unfortunate news to institutions that we were seeking their compliance with the Act. Out of respect, I will not express the reactions of the schools, but not all of them were thrilled. Some of the correspondence submitted on our end was reminding schools of the RTE provisions based on our discussions, mostly so that everything could be documented in the event of follow-up.

Our next step was discussing how they wished to receive our candidates: would they prefer to meet with the parents, or could we drop off the applications on their behalf? Most made everyone's lives easier by agreeing to take the paperwork from us. Organizing the parents and requesting them to take time off is not easy, just as I have to think it's not easy for schools to meet with 20 sets of parents in the midst of their busy days. Additionally, most institutions recognized that meeting with the parents to review their applications runs the risk of screening, which is a somewhat vague term but is expressly prohibited under the RTE. I am always happy when schools opt to work with us instead of with the parents: it makes communication so much easier, especially if we have to clarify any misconceptions or misinterpretations later. Sometimes, schools gave false information to families when they went on their own accord. Having to call up 20 families and rectify the matter, and then set the record straight with the school is a headache for everyone. It bred mistrust and frustration between all parties. All of it could have been avoided had the school mentioned the issue with us directly.

The next step was witnessing the admissions process employed by the school. Some were most welcoming in allowing us to partake in their public lottery. Others used admissions methods that we found... well, questionable at best. We will not be explicit, but our hopes were never raised until we saw the actual results. Even though we could use the laws of basic probability to estimate numbers, we reminded ourselves never to assume that we knew what was going to happen. We refused to speculate how many of our applicants would be granted seats.

After admissions were announced, we'd relay the news to parents. We also had to play musical chairs by assessing which accepted families already had a seat elsewhere, and which remained on the waiting list. This required contacting all of them and gauging their status. We then relayed other information to parents, such as the cost of school fees, start dates, and when to come and fill out further paperwork.

At the end of the day, we recognize that being a liaison is not a right but a privilege bestowed upon us by the institutions. They do not have to allow us in their doors, though we have to hope they recognize our good intentions: we do not wish to be aggressive or hostile, particularly as it relates to RTE compliance.

We do not wish to be activists; rather, we see ourselves as support structures for families first and foremost. If following the Right to Education is a mandatory protocol (which it is, for better or worse), then we try to make the experience as easy as possible for the schools. We enter every institution with the goal of being respectful and cooperative; not combative and argumentative. If we perceived that a school was attempting to evade the Act, then our conduct regrettably may have come across as the latter.

Additionally, we recognize the concerns of schools with respect to adjustment and assimilation. Part of our roles as a liaison is ensuring the children have adequate resources to perform well in the classroom. When possible, we meet with the schools to determine how best to achieve academic goals and social integration.

What we would do differently:

• I understand that many schools probably felt ambushed by our presence so late into the season. Next year, we anticipate school visits to occur well before the RTE admissions season. We will use the occasion to explain our work and ask about their RTE protocols. The early start will also serve as a heads up that they are not to fill their RTE seats during general admissions, as they should expect applications from our group come May.

• We will also ask the schools about their application requirements. Going into this season, we hadn't fully understood that schools have personal discretion with how they handle certain aspects. For instance, we assumed age requirements were a government directive rather than up to the school.

• I think we'd also give a better introduction regarding our work and identity. Going into schools, we assumed that our identity was irrelevant, as they must follow the law independent of who we were. When schools asked us, I was always a bit surprised: why should it matter? I then learned that most schools want to ensure that we had good motives. I later found out that some wealthy parents try to exploit the RTE to gain admissions, which is truly unfortunate. So, while our identities should not technically matter, we found that informing schools of our background could only help. 

Our privacy policy working with families under the Right to Education Act

Privacy is of fundamental importance to our organization. 

At present, we have no intentions of posting a full picture of a child admitted under the Right to Education Act. Every clear image of a child seen on this blog or website is one who resides in the neighborhood, but did not partake in the RTE drive. 

From an organizational standpoint, I recognize that few would suggest this move. Showing pictures of adorable children and telling their individual success stories would no doubt boost our group's reputation. It would increase our legitimacy, and help us attract funding. Storytelling is straight out of Nonprofit PR 101, after all. 

While the children we've worked with are incredibly adorable, I'm personally wary of broadcasting their identities and telling their stories of financial hardship. It's no secret that reservations are a hotly contested issue. Furthermore, no parent wants their child to be the RTE poster kid. Just imagine an organization helping you to overcome some type of private difficulty: then imagine that group asking if they can use your picture and story to highlight their work to broader society, all with a "donate now" button underneath your photo. You would likely say no and possibly feel mildly exploited. While there is nothing inherently shameful about economic inequality, it is not something that should be expressed from a loudspeaker, either. 

Just as you would not post your IT returns and upload a picture of your credit card statement, I do not want to weave a story that sounds something like, "This single mother set aside 5 Rs. a day during her job as a maid in hopes of giving her child a better education. When her husband became an alcoholic, money became tight but she never gave up hope. Then she applied for admissions under India's Right to Education Act with assistance from our group, and her child's future became brighter." I... just can't do that.   

It is our wish that every child expresses who they are on their own terms. Not ours. I do not want another parent in a school Googling the names of their child's classmates and having our work be the first thing they see. We do our best to give parents full autonomy. If we ever hand over their contact information or other details to a third party (such as the press), it is only with consent given to us well in advance. We do hope that parents will work with us in the coming years, primarily during our community outreach efforts. But we also respect their desire to assimilate into the schools outside of our PR limelight. 

If you are a third party wishing to know more about our families, however, we do have some parents who are willing to discuss their experience. We would be happy to forward your queries to such families, but we ask in advance that you respect the parent's sovereignty as well. Put yourself in their shoes when asking questions: would you want your answers publicized if asked such personal things? 

It is with these considerations in mind that we have created this informal privacy policy. We may highlight a student later in the event that we issue a merit-based scholarship or conduct some type of activity, but this will focus on a child's achievements or unique talent rather than "being an RTE student." We will also give due consideration as to how this may impact their assimilation in school. And as always, we will get the parent's permission when sharing such events and stories. 

This is the closest we get to publishing a
child's identity.

 

2014 RTE Chennai: Application Facilitation

Our Right to Education application facilitation day was easily the most hectic because it was combined with school visits: as mentioned in our awareness raising session post, our "booth" consisted of a flimsy card table and a few plastic chairs in the middle of a dusty street. Parents approached us between the hours of 4-6, and if I recall, we conducted this session twice.

Knowing that parents couldn't speak English, we simply read the application questions to them, and typed their answers on an Excel spreadsheet. Not having a proper queue meant that it was difficult avoiding duplicate answers or putting someone else's information on another person's column. We also captured the phone number of each applicant. I remember trying to block out the extra noise of the crowds as I focused on filling in each cell of the spreadsheet. To say it was chaotic is an understatement.

Welcome to our office!

At this stage, we had about 40 families approach the booth. Of those, about 25 had income certificates: knowing how stringent schools would be, we told them to come back if and when they obtained the certificate. Unfortunately, the short timespan inhibited many from completing the process. Some of these parents later got back in touch with us on account of getting the document, and we helped them individually at a later date.

After the session came the fun part: personally filling out each application! I stayed up until 2 am meticulously transferring the data from the spreadsheet to each application, and admittedly, I was quite nervous that I forgot a box or that I was filling in misheard information. My dining room table looked like a war zone with papers strewn about. I listened to music and some of the songs still remind me of that long night. I'd say I filled out roughly 45-50 applications that evening. Once finished, I then filed the applications according to the school, and attached a receipt to each. Parents were also later instructed to sign their application, and to please let us know if they had any questions regarding the boxes.

Why didn't you have the parents fill out the applications?

• The application is in English, for starters. 
• We were also operating on a short time frame. These parents would need to bring back a completed application by tomorrow at a pre-determined time, which I didn't think was a realistic request given their own work schedules and ours. I didn't want to risk a single dropout at this early stage. 
• I didn't want them being intimidated by the process, to be honest, or for them to think, "how many hurdles must I complete?" My mantra throughout the RTE drive was that if I could do it personally, I would. Thus, if I could complete the application on their behalf, then I would do it.  

The next day, we called the parents and told them to be ready to submit the applications to the schools. We also told them to bring the requisite paperwork, such as the birth certificate, community certificate, ration card, etc.

A professional outfit, right here...

Well, at the first school we got quite a surprise when trying to turn in the applications: they informed us to go to the Inspector of Matriculation's office to get a stamp. We didn't anticipate this hurdle and had never heard of this requirement, so we shuttled everyone to a government office via hired bus and spent the day getting stamped applications for all of the schools (just in case).

We also kept some volunteers stationed back at the table in case other parents showed up. We gave them money to take an auto as a way of transporting them quickly to the government office if need be.

At the end of the day, we had not submitted any of our newly-stamped applications on account of time. Unsurprisingly, government offices have a way of turning one hour into several! To the office's credit, most of the staff were absolutely lovely people. They were respectful to our parents, and overall pleased with what we were trying to achieve.

The parents, unfortunately, had to be prepared to spend another full day tomorrow going to the schools. The next day was also the stated deadline (18th of May), so my biggest fear was that we would not be able to turn in our applications to all of the institutions in time. Schools notoriously made parents "wait, please," and my concern was that an institution would make parents sit and wait for hours to meet with the correspondent who might otherwise be quite busy. If this happened, we knew our chances of submitting applications elsewhere would be slim.

During these three days in May, I'd say I slept 4 hours a night and my food intake was minimal. Stress was rampant amongst our group and the other organizations doing RTE work alongside us. The entire night, I was thinking of contingency plans: "if one school makes us wait this long, then we should go __ next. Maybe I should divide the families and send them schools as a rolling basis. Maybe I should..." My brain would not shut off, even if I wanted sleep.

What we'd do differently

• Getting an early start is a consistent lesson. The time spent between raising awareness, filling out applications, and dropping them off was a matter of two days when there should be a gap of at least two months. From our experience it's clearly possible to conduct an RTE drive in just 5 days, but I wouldn't wish it on my enemy based on the stress/work involved. We are already looking forward to devising a much saner, evenly paced schedule for next year. 

• Foresight with schools: the short timespan made it impossible to predict a school's wants and their reactions. When we went to submit applications, I had no idea if the school would let me submit them on behalf of parents, or if some would insist on their presence. I respected and valued both, but both methods have very different planning requirements on our end. Going forward, we will be giving schools great foresight with our presence and we will be asking well in advance how they wish to handle our RTE candidates.

• Getting application requirements in advance: Next year, we do not want to be taken off guard by a mandate to go to a government office. We will also be asking the school what their requirements are for RTE admissions as it relates to age cutoffs and paperwork.

• Letting parents fill out their own applications with the appropriate tools and support. I do not regret how we handled things given the brevity. But in the future, we will be hosting presentations and offering translated documents to help them fill out their own applications. Additionally, we will offer a drop-off point where they can submit their paperwork to us over the course of a month. 

• I also had guilt about the parents, who couldn't be given the complete picture as to what was going on for reasons of time constraints. We tried our best to make the process easier for them by filling out their applications and personally shuttling them to various locations, but I'm certain they had many unanswered questions about what was going on. Some would get their stamps early and would wait for hours at an office with their toddler, wondering where they'd be going next. It was hot, crowded, and confusing. Though a volunteer was on-hand, many parents felt delicate about asking us questions. 

As for making copies of the applications, I cannot say with a straight face that we have a beautifully-organized filing cabinet. Instead, we relied on taking pictures of each page with our iPhones and categorizing them electronically. It was hardly a perfect method, but one that worked given the constraints! The Xerox places approached required an overnight for applications, and this to me was insufficient given the precious few hours remaining the next day.

There we have it. Our application facilitation sessions were amusingly primitive, but we managed.

These two little girls were great assistants. 

Addendum: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the amazing application facilitation work conducted by the Becoming I Foundation. Their tireless volunteers set up a desk at the government office itself and advised families across the city to fill out applications on location over the course of 3-4 crucial days. They assisted all of the parents, and gave them advice on submitting them to the schools. They are still collating the data, but they helped several families gain admissions in this fashion.

On sending RTE-admitted kids to the city's best schools

Imagine that you are a middle-class parent. A letter comes in the mail: it has elongated script and a crimson emblem blazed on the upper left corner. "This is a dream," you think, "... is this what I think it is?" The packet feels heavy, and you hold it in your hands, shaking. "It can't be what I think it is..." Your child applied for a diversity scholarship to this school ages ago on a lark, but didn't think anything would come of it. No way. Your child is just the daughter of a salesclerk and administrative assistant--nothing special. As you pull out the embossed paper, your mouth goes dry. "Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that your child has been accepted to Harvard University on a full-ride scholarship..."

You drop the sheet of paper.

It's happening.

Your child got accepted to Harvard. 

After the elation subsides, panic sets in. "How will she manage? Will the other kids make fun of her Indian accent? It's cold in Cambridge. I don't know if she'll fit in among the American students. We're so poor by comparison. I hear they can be mean. Will she make friends? Sure, she's just as capable and bright as the others, but will the teachers accommodate her if she can't understand the lectures? What will she do when I won't be there to cook for her? What am I going to do if I have to send her money in an expensive city like Boston? She's never even been outside India, how will she manage?"

Now think of what you would say to such a parent. Would you tell her not to send her kid to Harvard? Of course not. Any parent who wants the best for their child would jump at the offer to attend a top institution, no matter these fears. If Harvard offers a full scholarship, you take it. There is simply no question. So long as it is free for that child to be sitting in the classroom, everything else becomes a secondary concern. In fact, not sending the child would be seen as a self-sabotaging tragedy. If the parent were to deny their child the opportunity of going to a school that will literally change their life, we would judge the parent for prioritizing their own insecurities over the well-being of the child. We would see that yes, it will take fortitude of character to adjust to a new and difficult environment, but that these are not sufficient reasons to turn down such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that can catapult her into a lifetime of success.

And this reasoning is why I seek admissions at top schools for children applying under the Right to Education Act. It's genuinely no different than the above scenario. 

It's surprising how often people discourage me from enrolling kids at such schools, though. I've heard from my family members and even other education nonprofits working with underprivileged kids to "avoid such prestigious, high-end schools; they won't adjust." I find this logic patronizing, to be honest, and it greatly underestimates a child's innate strength. Just think about it: Our entire school system is designed on challenges. We challenge them through exams. We challenge their way of thinking. We challenge them through competitive sports, where winners and losers are made. We brutally rank them alongside their peers. Sometimes they come home dejected after failing an exam. And yet... a good educator recognizes that growth only comes through adversity. School is not about being comfortable. We continuously push and challenge them in the name of their best interest. If they are not good enough at first, then we don't tell them, "don't bother trying." We work with them, and push them to be better. 

As for socially, I understand that we want to shelter children from the harsh realities of adolescence. It's the reason we buy useless toys that hold so much social capital; why we buy designer clothes for them; and why we upgrade their smart phones even though their old one was perfectly adequate. And while these things certainly help with integration, they are not bullet-proof from the stings of a classmate's inevitable thoughtless remarks. Growing, I recall being bullied for not being able to afford Nike shoes like my well-off classmates. I saw kids less fortunate than me be teased mercilessly, and I often did my best to be their allies as a result. Even my spouse who had all of the accoutrements still experienced occasional difficulties being a non-Brahmin in an otherwise all-Brahmin school. Other close family members have experienced racism despite the school's prestige. 

Kids can be brutal, no matter one's status. 

I recognize that the difficulties faced by RTE-admitted children will likely be greater than anything I experienced growing up. I can only hope such hardship engender compassion towards the less fortunate when they are in a position of power later in life (as good schools are wont to offer). Interestingly, I learned from reading a book that was given to me by the school that Lady Andal herself was made to study outside, away from the other kids. She faced great discrimination as a young widow, and I have to think that her adversity shaped her desires to work with the poor. It seems beautiful things can arise from being socially ostracized, even though it's hard at the time. 

That's basically life itself, isn't it? "It's hard but worth it." The best things in life are hard: parenting, going to school, falling in love, starting a business, going on an adventure... I've found that difficulty and greatness are complements.

I will do everything I can to mitigate the difficulties incurred by children at these schools by having close involvement with the families, but alas, I cannot change the fact that they are poor. 

At the end of the day, though... you damn well send your kid to Harvard.

RTE Advocates Methodology

If we had to sum up the approach to our Right to Education work in Chennai, it would be quality engagement. Unlike some RTE groups that focus on just parents and outreach (which is still great!), we employ a hands-on methodology with both families and schools. Our engagement also doesn't end after the admissions cutoff, either, as we offer support throughout the school year.

When we first heard about the RTE from local activists, they tended to give the same message: "Every school should follow it, but no one does. They turn away parents, give false information, and turn a blind eye." Given this, we didn't want to arm parents with information and let them go to the schools on their own accord.

After many school visits where we had met with administrators personally, me and my co-founder turned to each other and said, "I can't imagine how a parent could do this on their own." There were indeed some accommodating schools, but they were the exception and hardly the rule. Knowing the difficulty parents would face at an institution was a huge reason for our intimate involvement. Wherever our parents submitted an application, we had visited in advance.

Quality engagement doesn't stop with the parents. We also value and respect the schools, and we wish to view them as a partner rather than an adversary. Regrettably, this relationship was not always possible to forge when schools opted for noncompliance. For the institutions that did work with us, however, we made it very clear that we want to keep in close contact regarding our RTE-admitted students: we want to offer extra tutoring, mentorship, and intervention in the event of poor academic performance. For prestigious, expensive institutions, we wish to offer greater financial support to admitted children. Additionally, RTE Advocates wishes to meet with the teachers periodically for a status update on the child's welfare: this is still a "wishes" component because we must respect a school's autonomy, and we only go where we are welcome.

RTE Advocates is exceptionally proud of our inaugural year of work, which includes:

• Discussing the Right to Education Act and compliance with every institution under our purview
• Facilitating 70 applications
• Working with 19 families
• Engaging with 8 schools
• Meeting parents on at least 3 occasions to offer updates
• Personally transporting parents to/from schools
• Personally transporting parents to/from government offices
• Personally submitting 95% of all RTE applications to schools on behalf of parents
• Collecting and documenting paperwork, from documents, to receipts, to admissions slips
• Relaying information from school officials, thereby making their jobs easier (we hope!)
• Calling parents individually to inform them of admissions decisions, rejections, and appeals
• Issuing full scholarships for books and uniforms for this year to every child admitted under the RTE 
• Issuing reimbursement for general admissions fees if the parent had already paid for a seat elsewhere (on account of the extended, late June 30th deadline) but had later procured an RTE seat
• Working with the institutions and paying for supplemental programs that may assist the RTE-admitted students (in progress, as the dust needs to settle first).
• Following up on the well-being of students
• Measuring and assessing outcomes of every RTE-admitted child compared with non-RTE students, and working to fill any gaps
• Achieving a 65-85% admissions acceptance rate (the percent depends on whether you remove families who had gained admissions elsewhere, did not submit a complete application, and the families who had dropped out of the process). There were but two families who were unsuccessful. 

Naturally, scaleability is an issue: Perhaps we could expand our outreach, and maybe we could submit 200 applications and work with 20 schools. But at this stage, we are unsure if the quality of our involvement would suffer: As is, we place great emphasis on follow-up, financial support, and ongoing support/oversight to families and schools alike. Our expansion will only happen if we are certain that these crucial components will not suffer. Moreover, we look forward to using this inaugural year to assess how much support is necessary for parents and schools to achieve maximum benefits. This too will help us gauge or outreach efforts the following year. Perhaps we are being too hands-on, and maybe children will naturally flourish independent of our involvement. Or, maybe we will discover that underprivileged children need great external support and resources to achieve success. It is with great excitement that we shall find out. 

2014 RTE Chennai: Awareness Raising

Our Right to Education awareness raising session was pretty informal on account of our late start. When one thinks of "awareness raising," they probably imagine a sane, civil gathering whereby parents are lovingly ushered into a nice auditorium and are given glossy pamphlets to reiterate the RTE's highlights. Though this is what we also envision next year, this year's efforts were much simpler.

The night before, I had created a poster which simply read, "If your child is entering LKG-1st standard, they may be eligible for free private school education. Come to our booth on School Street, 13th of May at 5pm, for more information and an application." I then got this translated into Tamil and made the message into a poster-sized sheet of paper.

Don't mind us...

On May 10th, 2014, me and my co-founder/husband, Sriram, went into our neighboring clearance housing boards with fliers created by Bhumi (a youth-based educational NGO). We thankfully had our apartment's watchman to lead us around the area, and he knew were to find the families with the young children. Also in tow was a member of Becoming I, who greatly assisted us with fielding Tamil-based queries of the parents.

Most of the residents were curious as to our presence, but I have to think handing out candy to their kids made it clear that we weren't much of a threat. Our greater concern was people assuming that we were affiliated with a political party--the election was around this time, after all!

We then placed our posters throughout the neighborhood. I honestly had no idea how many families would turn up to our information session. Getting such a ballpark figure is hard, although we can safely assume it's 40 families within one neighborhood.

Read our RTE poster!

What I would do differently next year:

For one, I'd easily start earlier! We were swamped the previous months, and admittedly, a part of me thought based on the attendance of the seminar where I first learned of the RTE that "someone else will surely do something. It's not like I'm needed." As the weeks rolled on, I asked other nonprofits in the area "hey, what are you guys doing for the RTE?" When I basically heard, "we're just doing information awareness," or, "we'll start something next year," I realized.... no group was working one-on-one with parents and schools. Though other organizations later got on board, it was then that I thought, "I guess I'll try to do something if few others are." I formulated a quick game plan and invited other organizations to get their volunteers involved in our efforts. Even then, I assumed my involvement would more be from a detached journalistic perspective: I'd chronicle my experience, write a rubric for each school's conduct, submit it to our press contacts, and call it a day. At no point did I expect to become so invested in the outcome of these families.

I would also book a venue in advance. As you'll read later, our information booth was literally a table in the middle of a hot, dusty road and a few plastic chairs. 

I'd also get better tape. Seriously, don't go putting up pieces of paper on less-than-clean walls using basic Scotch tape: when you come back down the same road ten minutes later, that poster will be dusty and torn on the ground. 

Giving out candy is great, but I would've ensured its distribution after we've spoken with the parents. Otherwise, kids have this laser-beam focus on sugary goodness rather than listening to the message. 

I would say that we'd expand our outreach, but I'm quite satisfied with our efforts in just one small area of the city. We learned so much, and 20 families for literally 2 people was all we could handle given our intensive hands-on approach to RTE work. 

Chetpet, Chennai Right to Education 2014 Results

What a year! Our organization, RTE Advocates, assisted 19 families, facilitated 70+ applications, and worked with 8 schools in the Chetpet area (only 5 extensively).

We got seats for 12 of them.

Of the 7 who did not get seats...

• 2 families dropped out of the process on account of finding schools elsewhere 
• 1 did not submit an income certificate 
• 2 declined RTE seats on offer. 
• 1 only applied to one institution
• 1 unfortunately did not get selected at the 4 schools to which she applied.

Of the 8 schools we approached, the breakdown of our experience is as follows:

• 2 schools claimed minority status (we are investigating one)
• 1 school claimed to have finished admissions in February (we will be approaching the CBSE board to determine the claim's legitimacy)
• 1 school offered 2 seats (but we believe did not fully comply with the Act)
• 1 school offered 6 seats (2 of whom had already accepted RTE seats elsewhere)
• 1 school offered 6 seats 
• 1 school did not offer any seats, which we are investigating
• 1 school is likely going to reject all of our candidates for being 1.2 km away from the institution (the law states within 1km). Because most of our candidates have been placed elsewhere, we are debating further action or if we should let it be.