APJ ABDUL KALAM TRIBAL RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL

Pattimalam Attapadi
Email: [email protected]

Executive Summary

APJ Abdul Kalam Tribal Residential School is to provide quality education exclusively for tribal children, mainly from kurumba community of Attappady, in complete residential mode with superior infrastructure and resource pool. Among the three major tribal sects in Attappadi, i.e Irula, Kurumba and Muduga, the primitive most tribal group are Kurumbas who inhibit inner forest areas with deprived living standards. The school is situated at Attappady, the largest tribal block of Kerala in around 4.59 acres of its ethnic locale. It will contribute to the sustainable development of tribal community retaining their cultural values and heritage. The mission is to enable the tribal children to have an insightful and confident future overcoming the various inhibitions they confront while interacting with the mainstream society.

Importance and relevance of the mission.

Education of Scheduled Tribes (ST) children is important not just due to a Constitutional obligation to equality of its citizen or special entitlements to ST, but because it is a crucial input in the nation?s strategy of total development of tribal communities. However, despite the government?s active interventions for uplift, tribal people have lagged behind in education which in turn resulted a deteriorating and falling population. Kurumba community is the primitive sect of Attappady who have less contact with outer world and poor literacy rate. The school is set to provide quality and free education chiefly to their children in residential mode for all round development.

A P J Abdul Kalam International Residential Tribal School is the extension project of SMIC?s (Santhi medical Information Centre) Attappadi Welfare Project. Our past three years? (2014-17) welfare activities in the region could bring better living conditions to the community in terms of infrastructure facilities, education, health, employment, hygiene & sanitation etc. But in the bottom line, the fact is, the tribal people are more inclined to their lethargic way of life addicted to drugs and laziness with little interest to work, learn or to live self-sufficiently due to their long rooted and habituated way of unprivileged, exploited, oppressed and marginalized life. They resort back to their miserable lifestyle, the moment the external rehabilitation facilities are stopped. Lack of solid basics in education restrains them to excel in higher studies, which was reaffirmed to us when tried to give entrance coaching [ Students of GHSS Sholayur ] and IAS coaching to selected students of Attappady. Only solution is the sustainable development of the community through education and the hopes resides with the upcoming generation.

Objectives

The mission of APJ Abdul Kalam Residential School is to impart and instill the academic knowledge along with the values of self-sufficiency, humanity, social responsibility and sustainability among the tribal children. The school is intended for children of the primitive tribal sect i.e Kurumba whose absence may let the admission of children from other tribal communities. The objectives are set to achieve within a gradual span of their study from standard first to twelve.

• The school curriculum will follow Kerala State Board Syllabus taught by qualified tribal teachers who are able to speak tribal language.
• Cocurricular subjects of learning will be tribal folk arts including their dance forms, vocal and instrument music and drama, taught by the indigent masters from their own community.
• Athletics and sports will be given prior importance as tribal children have better physic especially with powerful shoulder bones which shall be developed through appropriate training and guidance.
• The spacious school campus and compound will be utilized to do traditional cultivation, local tribal festivals and celebrations in a timely manner to let the students grow without distancing from their own culture.
• A botanical garden in housing 1500 variety of plants are grown within the school compound which will be subsequently added with 2500 herbal plants known to tribal community in order to introduce to the students and retain their knowledge about the traditional tribal treatment methods.
• Environmental Awareness will be primarily taught among the students to inculcate the values of conserving nature and the ecosystem.
• Western parts of Attappadi suffer severe water scarcity and water literacy is implemented to teach the students as responsibility. The school is well equipped with RO Plant, a water storage dam of 5 lakh ltrs capacity and water recycling system.
• To instill reading habit from an early age among the students, a vast library is designed to in-house one lakh books.
• Energy efficiency is observed through installing solar light and water heaters system throughout the campus.
• Students are facilitated for ample playground with fun and entertainment options.
• Students will be provided with special training in Abacus, Drawing, Dance, Music and Martial arts.
• Qualified resource pool is ensured to train the students in curricular and co-curricular learning. Professionals from tribal community will be appointed to avoid estrangement feeling of students within the campus.
• Moral and family values will be nurtured by observing monthly get together and gathering of families in the school. Rehabilitation and uplift of the students? families is targeted by sourcing out the school related employment opportunities [vegetable cultivation, poultry farming.
• An insightful teaching-learning process is targeted apart from the formal curriculum by directly introducing them the achievers from their own community in different fields on monthly once session basis.

Health

• MIC facilitates medical care, checkup and medicines for all residents in Down Agali Ooru. Two permanent nurses are appointed for continued medical support for the people.
• A residential Physiotherapy Rehabilitation Centre is set up in the region for the paraplegic patients.
• Established community kitchen to ensure regular diet based nutritious food and supplements among the tribal people.
• Introduced ?Nutrition Break? for 968 low HB detected students of Kottathara GUPS, HSS and Agali GVHSS and provided nutritious brunch during the break.
· SMIC also carries out the Health Awareness Program specifically among the tribal community, conducting early detection tests of lifestyle diseases, liver and other diseases, including ECG for a nominal sum of 250 INR · Santhi set up its 10th free and subsidized blood dialysis unit in Kottathara Tribal Specialty Hospital. Also an X-ray unit is set up by SMIC in Kottathara Tribal Specialty Hospital. · As the PHC in Sholayur lacks lab facility, SMIC set up a Mobile Lab with auto analyzer and all other facilities adjoined to the Hospital. SMIC runs the Mobile Lab for free of cost including the staff and equipments until the hospital is provided with lab facility from the government.

The School is registered under the Vidyadhanam Educational Trust who will be managing the funding requirements of the School. An Academic Advisory Committee consisting of professionals and subject experts chaired by Secretary of the Trust will be advising on the academic and expediting aspects of A.P.J Abdul Kalam Tribal Residential School. The Authority will be responsible for monitoring academic and infrastructure developments, review and adjust day to day operations. The objectives of the mission will be implemented through steering committees without amendments or alterations other than enhancing the deliverables.