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EGG signed an MOU with the Uttarakhand government in May 2006. As per the MOU, EGG is working in forty-seven government schools in Dehradun city and three residential schools for girls in Dehradun, Garhwal and Pauri districts.
EGG mobilizes communities with the objective of ensuring all girls of school going age in the area are enrolled and attending school. In other words, the community takes the initiative to ensure no girl of school going age remains out of school. Community mobilization is carried out through the School Information Campaign (SIC) and Gram Shiksha Sabhas (GSS) or the village/neighborhood meetings.
In each of the 47 schools EGG involves all school headmasters, teachers, parents of students, village/community leaders and local government officials from the Ministry of Education to come together to improve access and quality of education for girls. In order to encourage children's voices to be heard in matters affecting them in School, EGG is working with Children's Groups or Bal Sabhas in the allocated Schools.
Before starting the community mobilization work, EGG conducts a detailed school information campaign to get a clear picture of the state of girls' education in the particular area. This allows us to analyze the issues facing girls' education.
Progress so far:
In our in-depth data collection and analysis in the 47 schools in Uttarakhand we have found:
• Toilets: 87% of the schools have no toilets for girls and 10% have no toilets for the children at all.
• TLM: 89% of the schools have no teacher learning materials (TLM). This includes small things like a globe, chart for the class walls etc.
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• Electricity : 77% have no electricity.
• Student-Teacher ratio : Over 60% of the schools have over 30 students to a teacher and some as much as 80+ students to one teacher.
• Drinking Water : 15% have no clean drinking water for students.
In Uttarakhand, like in Rajasthan, the focus is on community mobilization. Since these schools are located in the urban areas, EGG is conducting a detailed mapping exercise to identify which area of the city the children are coming from and creating ways to conduct the neighborhood meetings or the Mohalla Shiksha Sabhas (MSS). The MSS are used as a tool for mobilizing the target communities to ensure that no girl of school going age remains out of school and once they are enrolled in school, they do not drop out. The data collected during the school information campaign is shared with the communities and the government officials in during the MSS.
In 2007:
From the MSS will emerge community action plans to improve access and quality of girls education. These action plans will be targeted at identifying drop out girls and re-enrolling them back into the school system. Action plans made by the community with the participation and support of the local Ministry officials will also focus on infrastructure improvement in the schools. These activities will be supplemented by other EGG initiatives for quality improvements.
In order to make school more meaningful for girls, capacities of schools teachers in the area of Life Skills will be strengthened. Teachers will integrate and transfer Life Skills to children in the schools.
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