Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar

The Making of Bhavans BBMP Public School – A Culture of Efficiency

Sriramapuram is predominantly a slum area and its residents fend for themselves to have three-square meals a day, with large families living in tiny houses barely having space to sleep. Education was notion their agenda. Abject poverty had pushed its residents to crime. Sriramapura was a known notorious area for long. The police had a tough time dealing with them. Any crime in nearby areas and suspicion would be on its residents. But today, the police are on record to say that crime has come down drastically since the functioning of the Bhavans BBMP School (English medium) CBSE affiliated in the locality.

Sriramapuram is predominantly a slum area and its residents fend for themselves to have three-square meals a day, with large families living in tiny houses barely having space to sleep. Education was notion their agenda. Abject poverty had pushed its residents to crime. Sriramapura was a known notorious area for long. The police had a tough time dealing with them. Any crime in nearby areas and suspicion would be on its residents. But today, the police are on record to say that crime has come down drastically since the functioning of the Bhavans BBMP School (English medium) CBSE affiliated in the locality.

Thus came into being the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan BBMP Public School, which is currently a CBSE Board school, the only BBMP School affiliated to the CBSE Board. The school has classes from Nursery to class 10. Each class from 1st to 6th has two sections of 30 students each, and children start from nursery. No admission is given midway. Students are from families who are getting education for the first time.

While Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar has sponsored all furniture and lab infrastructure and library, Suprajith Foundation are sponsors for the operational costs for the entire school. Any balance requirement is met through other donations. The cost per student including tuition fee, books, and uniform costs Rs 30,000 per year per child.

The first batch of class 10th studied in State Board syllabus and 19 students passed out in 2021. The second batch of class 10th studied in CBSE Board and 18 students passed out in 2022. Says School principal Vatsala Shastry, “We had 100 per cent results.

One of the students, a girl, Sharmilee V. scored 90.4 per cent marks and has joined MES College for PU course. Another student scored 93 in Maths and 97 in Kannada, though being from a Tamilian family.

Says K G Raghavan, Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bengaluru Kendra this is a charity school for the under-privileged and neglected sections of the society. The students are not just taught subjects but are being made civic minded citizens of the society. They are being developed as responsible members of civil society.

Says H N Suresh, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Director, Bengaluru Kendra who is the school’s CEO, that a model school is a dream project of Bhavan’s, where quality education is being imparted to these under privileged students who are not short of talent and intelligence. They have all the abilities, they need is the opportunity.
Once they are educated local social problems are also addressed and we are getting on with this project and look for a lot of people support. Bhavan is looking for corporate sponsors for students and sponsors for teachers under their CSR activities.
Suprajit foundation has come forward to sponsor five teachers salary. Total expenditure on teachers and house-keeping staff salaries is around Rs 95 lakh per annum.

Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan is looking to build a corpus of minimum Rs 10 crore to run the school with interest accrued from the Fixed Deposit. “We can receive funds under FCRA provision through which NRIs also can contribute and there is 100 percent tax exemption since Bhavan has been recognized as an institution of national eminence by the Government of India.

In view of New Educational Policy (NEP) implementation, we need some more teachers to teach, so students can learn skills in school itself to gain employment or be self-employed in the future. We have to appoint such teachers and as of now no provision is made due to financial constraints.

The school which has 30 dedicated teachers, provides free education to 50 per cent students admitted through BBMP quota, which includes tuition fee, uniform sets, books etc. Of the remaining 50 per cent seats, 25 per cent seats are filled through Right To Education (RTE) Act and the remaining 25 per cent are filled up by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan through a token fee.

The students getting admission through Bhavan’s quota have to pay a fee of Rs 17,500 per annum from nursery and for each subsequent class we raise Rs.500/- upto X standard, while Rs 23,500 per annum for 10th standard. There is a Rs 500 difference in fee between classes to differentiate a higher class.

M/s.Volvo has sponsored 30 students from payment quota for this year and next year. Those interested can sponsor a child for education by contributing Rs 30,000 per annum per child.

School General Manager H V Gayatri says criteria for admission to the school is they have to reside within a 3km radius. Many parents come and desperately seek for admission today in this school. There is a change in the parents’ desire that they want to educate their children at any cost.

These children have several issues back home, many of the parents are separated, but they are eager to study. Many of them stay back after school hours to sit and learn more, they attend special classes, they find it better to be at school rather than go back to their home environment. Parents are in a disturbed state and can’t give them guidance or much needed support because of all these reasons children attendance is 100% throughout the year.

Says Smt.Vatsala Shastry, “We have a psychologist coming to the school every week and counseling”. The students/parents both needed the help.

Counseling Psychologist and psychotherapist at NIMHANS Dr Aparna Mahesh says the confidence levels of these students needs to be boosted. “About 50 percent of the parents of these children are alcoholics and end up with an ugly fight at home. Atmosphere at home is not conducive. The children are mostly innocent and want to achieve something in life”.

Dr Aparna says that she has noticed that the children have physical difficulties and health issues due to poor nourishment. They are subjected to continuous abusive language and violence at home and hence are in a traumatized condition. “Their behavior too is bad due to influence of parents and these children often use foul language”.

Also, these children have a huge fear factor and they have to be worked upon. Some children have step mothers, they face sibling rivalry, some stay with their uncle / aunts. In one case, a student faced jealousy issues because his cousin was not scoring as good marks as him.

Most of these students have a good capacity and have a dream to get into a good job, but they do not know anything. Their general knowledge and awareness is poor. They do not know what subjects they can study when they go to college. Their mental health needs to be continuously addressed. Behavioral issues are huge. “We have to work on them quite a bit”.

Says Dr Aparna, It takes a long time for the students to open up. Parents don’t understand health issues. We try to talk to them on basic hygiene, their awareness is poor. Some girls talk about child abuse at home and they do not know how to deal with it. So we have to teach them about touch etc. and guide them.

The school principal said Apollo Hospitals Seshadripuram has set up a free dispensary for students at the school and it functions as an emergency care centre. Sick students are given free of cost medicines. In case of further treatment required through admission to hospital, such students are facilitated through nominal costs at the hospital.

Rukmini Krishnaswamy, Hon. Director of Spastics Society of Karnataka and her team has identified children with learning disabilities in the school and are training teachers to handle such students.

Smt. Gayatri added that the school is also looking to find sponsors for Teachers salary, sports activities, uniform, text books and note books, stationery and even shoes for students.

Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar is already taken this meritorious students passing out of the Bhavans BBMP School to undertake higher education including PUC, graduation and skill developmental through their scholarship programmes.

These children now have started hoping of having a near normal life, thanks to humanity in its full splendor!

We earnestly request you to join hands with this unique project and to sponsor and contribute, please write to [email protected]