ADMISSION PROCESS OF CHILDREN INTO PARIVAAR

Parivaar Ashram is a Residential and overall life development institution for erstwhile other destitute children. Typically Parivaar receives everyday about 5 to 10 cases of such children everyday by different field organizations, relatives or neighbors of the child in case, concerned individuals, members of local bodies, Panchayats etc. After filtering Prima Facie information, cases for site visit and detailed investigation are short-listed. Parivaar has a special Enquiry team that conducts site enquiries from where the case-request has come. This team visits the child’s existing location and collects detailed profile, facts and information of the child, based on interaction with the child’s referring persons / entity and other possible sources. This site report is then discussed and deliberated upon, and the severity of the need of the child to be admitted for a long term into Parivaar Ashram is validated and decision thereof is made. The important parameters looked into while admitting into Parivaar Ashram are as follows:

1. The child’s age during admission into Parivaar should be between 4 to 10 years, though certain exceptions are made
2. There should be no possibility of child’s dropout from this long-term stay at Parivaar Ashram at least he or she becomes of age and is able to make decision for himself / herself, grow to his / her potential and find a place as a socially dutiful, worthy individual.
3. Parivaar acts as the custodian of the child and makes all the decisions in his / her best interest.
4. The child will continue to be in and under the care of Parivaar, even after their legal age of adulthood i.e. 18 years just as in any family parents and the family continues to support their ward financially and otherwise until the child (who shall be a youth by then) has found a place for himself / herself as described above.
5. Generally, along with one child all his / her siblings are also admitted into Parivaar as all of them are destitute/homeless/’family-less’ and Parivaar’s principle is that all siblings should progress and have bright futures so that their familial bonding remains intact in future.
6. Every two months there is a date on which the recognized guardian or close relative of the child (as recognized by Parivaar authorities) may visit Parivaar and meet the child.

Generally children admitted into Parivaar are from categories like orphans, street and pavement dwelling children, children with critically / terminally ill mother and no father and other family support, children from other crises background like whose father ahs deserted the mother and children, vulnerable girl children from prostitution-infested areas who are under the risk of being sucked into flesh trade unless educationally-equipped. A large number of children are from rural areas as well.

Orientation

A Brief of Scheme of Education for the resident children at Parivaar.
Typically a child is admitted into Parivaar within the age group of 4 years to 12 years. All these children without exception have had no exposure to education whatsoever, before being admitted into Parivaar.
There are 3 categories in which the children can be placed as far as their educational path is concerned and three different action plans are taken for them.

A) The youngest admittees into Parivaar (age 4 to 6)

The youngest admittees (aged 4,5,6) are those who are rightly aged to start their academic life, and are admitted into most initial classes (Kindergarten / Class 1) since their age is in accordance with the class they are admitted into. Right from the beginning they are able to progress in their studies without any difficulty as there is a strong battery of teachers at Parivaar Ashram, who teach these children after their day school. Also the pace at which at these children are taught is just right for their age as no fast-bridging has to be done for this category since they do not have an educational backlog vis-a-vis their age.

B) Admittees who have a big educational backlog

Children admitted to Parivaar who have age of 8 to 12 (aged 8,9,10,11,12) and still not having any exposure to education, are first trained in-house for one year at Parivaar through what we call ‘Fast-Learning Bridge Course’ by our battery of teachers, and then made to be admitted into a class suitable for their age. For example, at the end of the bridge course a nine-year-old child would be admitted in Class 4 or at least Class 3.

C) Children who have already got past either A or B, and are now already settled in regular academic path in Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth or other Formal Schools

The children who have in the previous years got past the above 2 stages i.e. who are now already settled in the regular academic path at a normal pace (i.e. one Standard (Grade) in one year) get admission into either Parivaar’s own Formal School ‘Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth’ (which at present is from Class 1 to 5) or (for Class 5 onwards) into other good quality schools in the area through competitive admission tests. For all the students in this category too, ‘After-the-school-tutorship’ is of immense importance and is an essential component of our education efforts. There are two reasons for this:

1. The first reason flows from central theme of Parivaar that is ‘Excellence’. Parivaar’s vision is that all the resident children continuously excel from strength to strength and as per their abilities shape a bright future for themselves in various professional lines. Excellence and not mediocrity is what we aim for each child in Parivaar. Our vision is that our children excel from one level to a higher level.

2. Because of the fact that many of the children have been jumped into a higher class through fast learning bridge course it may so happen that some may initially struggle a bit when admitted into a higher class in a formal school. But we have invariably seen that because of focused ‘After-School Tutorship’ study hours (4 to 5 hours in addition to the school hours) the performance of each child in every successive examination improves. The children who get admission into outside schools by appearing into schools’ competitive admission tests continuously match the performance of other children coming from regular households who did not have any education backlog. With respect to these children too, their performance betters with time.

Our team of teachers – both at Amar Bharat Vidyapeeth as well as Tutorship Program work very hard with each child, so that each child can continue to excel and learn to bring out the best from within themselves. Each day of their academic progress is noted by the teachers and other Resident elders of the Residential Institution (responsible for the overall caretaking of the children), and it is ensured that they perform and master that very day whatever is taught in the schools they attend. During the last week in each month, detailed tests are taken for all subjects for all the children both in their Schools as well as in internally in the ‘After-the-School Tutorship’. This helps in continuous evaluation and correction resulting in improvement.

Parivaar has always being following this principle - A child before being admitted into Parivaar may have been an orphan/homeless/family less/destitute child, but after being admitted into Parivaar the child is no more so. He has then got a Home, Family, and Future. Thus the first thing done is to de-tag and de-label this unhappy epithet of ‘homeless child’. Therefore, when Parivaar children (who are in higher classes of 6 and 7) have to seek admission in outside schools, Parivaar never pushes the admission of children into schools merely on sympathetic background. Self-Dignity and self-confidence have to be earned and our children do so by getting admission in good schools on the basis of their merit and re-strengthen it by their continuous good performance in their school. It may happen that a child may not get admission into School A, failing to clear its merit test, but gets admission into School B and advances from there, always having a chance to excel in future.