Education. Just another name for freedom from poverty, ignorance and a life on the streets.

At Sunbeam, we have a three-pronged approach to education:

1. prepare the child for formal schooling
2. enrol him/her into a formal school
3. follow up to ensure retention.

But how do you introduce an 11-year old street child with no reading or writing skills to formal schooling? The solution: A bridge course.

Bridge Course:

At Sunbeam centres, the new entrants are taught the basic skills and then depending on their grasp, are prepared for entry into a grade corresponding with their age. For some, this could mean a direct admission to the 3rd or 4th standard in a municipal school. Condensing 4-6 years of education into 8 months or less might sound unbelievable, like it did to Arjun’s father. But the children with their eager, agile minds and the motivated teachers make it possible. Once in school, the children return to the Sunbeam centre, where teachers assess their progress, supervise their homework and prepare them for exams.

Table1.1 Performance of Bridge Course children in the yearly exams held at Sunbeam centers – March ’05

Formal Schooling:

Our goal at Sunbeam isn’t just to make the child literate, but also to ensure integration with the mainstream. And that’s why we passionately support formal schooling. We’ve enlisted the support of the municipal schools nearest to each of our centres. In fact, 4 out of our 5 centres operate out of Municipal Schools. That should give you an idea of the co-operation and support we’ve received, right from the Education Officers, school principals and teachers!

Table 1.2 Performance of children in the General Batch in the yearly exams held at Sunbeam centers – March ’05

Ensuring retention:

Enrolling a child in school is the easy part. Ensuring that they stay in school is tough. Low motivation, the lure of the streets, parents moving to new sites - all are potential causes for drop-out. Here’s where teachers and community workers play an active role in preventing dropouts. They keep a tab on every child at the centre, assess the reasons for dropout and take immediate corrective steps.

When families migrate to new construction sites, the community supervisor follows up with them. She makes sure that the child is admitted into the nearest municipal school in that area. But the children continue to stay in touch with Sunbeam. Like Shiva and Maruti did.

This stringent attention has ensured that Sunbeam retention rates are among the highest.

Private Schooling

Poverty, lack of proper amenities, lack of opportunity - sometimes none of this can diminish a child’s fierce desire to excel. Sunbeam students have, in many cases, fared better than their privileged counterparts in school. In 2003, a few of these excellent performers were selected for admission to private schools where they would get further opportunities to test their mettle. The criteria for selection were - consistently excellent grades, parents’ commitment to education and the child’s commitment to completing his/her education. Most of these children, like Ganesh, have performed extremely well in private schools and plans are on to include more children in this process.

Staff Capacity Building

Teacher, parent, friend, nurse, muse - the role of a teacher at Sunbeam is at once complex and challenging. And yet the women (and a few men now) take to their role with great enthusiasm. Ironically, most of the teachers socio-economic condition is only marginally better than the children. But that doesn’t deter them from bringing out the best in the children. Here’s what they Key Result Areas look like.

What’s more, teachers undergo regular training to update their skills. The Primary teachers have all successfully completed a D.Ed course in Primary Education from Samrat Academy .

Incidentally, teachers at Sunbeam have more to offer than their skills as teachers. Surekha is a national level rifle shooter, Meenakshi also conducts dance classes and Vishal is a photographer and artist.