Nalanda Initiative


"EDUACTION is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making assimilated ideas & made them your life and character; you have more education than a man who has got by heart a whole library."

Swami Vivekanand

Project Description

To provide an interactive learning experience to underprivileged children, Vivekanand Seva Mandal focuses on delivering highest quality of learning experience under NALANDA Initiative.

The word NALANDA stands for New Age Learning Aimed at Nurturing Development & Aspirations.

NALANDA's Objectives

    To foster high-quality education to underprivileged students of city neighbourhoods.

  • To help students grasp faster and retain knowledge better.

  • To engage students in participatory sessions that will bring out their strengths, confidence.

Project Concept:

  • Basic idea is to impart high-quality education to underprivileged children of city neighbourhoods via latest audio-visual techniques and other new age techniques.

  • Emphasizing on equal right to quality education to every student, Vivekanand Seva Mandal is engaging with the children of Zilla Parishad and Municipal schools by partnering with schools/ state education department / KDMC education department.

  • Mandal donates audio-visual infrastructure to schools to provide entire audio-visual course content free of cost, so that school teachers can regularly use this e-classroom for their regular sessions.

  • Mandal conducts a weekly session in most participatory way to help students learn difficult most topics in a most congenial environment.

  • The syllabus for our sessions is designed by our education experts from Dombivli, Pune and UK.

  • Dedication, passion and qualification of volunteers are the key strengths of Nalanda initiative.

  • Mandal’s volunteer-teachers engage with the students once a week, that help students unleash their hidden potential (general knowledge, communications etc.). The session encourages students to involve in participative learning which helps improve their motivation and commitment towards education.

  • The special attention is given to student-friendly medium of delivery by volunteers of Mandal.

  • This initiative, thus, ensures that even underprivileged children in the society get the best quality education and learning experience in order to get real education.

Execution

Phase I

  • Nalanda initiative started in the academic year 2013-14 at ZP school, Maanpada-Maangaon, Dombivli.

  • Mandal donated 40-inch TV set along with E-classroom software for 6th and 7th standard.

  • Mandal’s team conduct sessions at the school on every Saturday for 2 hours in order to engage the session for 7thstd students.

  • The sessions imparted basic concepts of science and maths to students through audio-visual techniques.

General knowledge, soft-skills development were some of the crucial topics of session delivery.

Achievements:Within a very short span of time, the school teachers gave us the feedback:“Handwriting of students has improved. The clarity of thoughts is visible in their exam papers”. By the end of the academic year, the students seemed to be more confident and bold in public speaking.

Phase II

  • Emboldened by our success of phase 1, Mandal decided to expand this initiative to 2 more schools in and around Dombivli.

  • We aim to achieve more encouraging performance from students of these schools through quality in session delivery, passion and dedication. Below is a list of Nalanda units that we started for 2014-15.

  • Zilla Parishad School – Mangaon-Manpada – State Govt. run school (Continued since 2012-13)

    • Acharya Bhise School – KDMC run school

    • Ayare School – KDMC run school

Measure of Success

To monitor the effectiveness of Nalanda Initiative, Mandal designed a framework based on which, the performance is measured. Following are the major parameters to check the performance of students as well as effectiveness of this project:

  • Quality improvement in students’ basic skills (Reading, writing, speaking)

  • Personality improvement of students & higher motivation to continue the education. The last aspect is important as most of the children from the city neighbourhoods have challenged family background.

  • Help teachers adopt participatory approach, and audio-visual techniques

Swami Vivekananda dreamt of imparting man-making education to the masses. We at Vivekananda Seva Mandal are taking small steps in realising that noble dream through NALANDA initiative.

We appeal for your sincere help for the same. Together we can create a great education culture that was once a part of India’s history, as epitomised by the ancient university of Nalanda.