Vidyanjali: Being the 2nd most populated country, India is also the home for more number of school going children. And the school dropouts due to lack of financial resources has been increasing at an alarming rate. And the government schools are continuously failing to retain the students either because the students switch over to private & corporate schools or the children are forced to work to support their family. Empirical reports show that there is a dearth of teaching staff in the government schools. To address this issue, the government of the day headed by Shri Narendra Modi has initiated a program called “Vidyanjali yojana”. Though this was launched in 2016, due to lack of awareness, it has not been as successful as it could, which prompted us write this article.
Quick Links
What is Vidyanjali?
Vidyanjali – (School Volunteer Programme) is an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of School Education & Literacy designed to enhance community and private sector involvement in Government run elementary schools across the country under the overall aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Vidyanjali is a volunteer based program designed to utilize the community power to boost the education sector and literacy.
Objectives:
- To bring together the people who are willing to volunteer their services at schools which really need them. The volunteers will act as mentors, confidantes and communicators with children.
- Schools having lack of teachers will be identified and volunteers will be allowed to enroll as teachers as per the norms set under this program
Eligibility:
- One does not require to qualify for any entrance test to teach
- An Indian citizen who is a retired Professional, retired government official including retired defense personnel, working professional or homemaker. Home maker should be at least a high school pass
- A foreign national of Indian origin having possessed the Overseas citizenship of India (OCI)
- People Who have never been in any government service but have a graduation degree
How to apply?
Those who would like to work as a volunteer having been eligible to the criteria laid above can apply by logging into government portal https://secure.mygov.in/task/vidyanjali-school-volunteer-programme/.
Selection procedure:
The Block education officers (BEO) are given the responsibility to check the application of volunteers. The volunteers will fill up the details of the school he wishes to volunteer in. On acceptance by the head master of the school, one is accepted to serve for a pilot period of 2 weeks. Upon completion of this, the volunteer can continue by extending the service through another application.
Outcomes:
- Since this is a pure volunteering, only those who are passionate about mentoring, guiding the students would come forward on their own interest. Hence, they will certainly add value to the children with their area of wisdom, experience.
- Volunteers who are involved in performance and fine arts like music, dancing can act as a boost to nurture the talents of the students
One should remember the fact that this is a pure volunteering and in no way will provide any salary or any recruitment as a regular teacher in the schools run by the government.
Recommended
