Career Guidance Program

Some Background information:
Sanghika Sankshema hostel Number 1 is a hostel for poor students where students from all over the Vikarabad mandal, come to have boarding and lodging, from where they attend classes in different government schools. The hostel currently harbors 167 students. This hostel is for students from 8-10th and there is also a hostel for 1-7th standard and is called No 2 hostel. Students from No-2 hostel are admitted into this. The food provided here is better than several government hostels. Class 10th students are provided with classmates [monthly book], workbooks and All–in-One during exams. A blanket and trunk box for keeping books, notebooks and text books are also facilitated for free, apart from which an amount of Rs 30 is given to students for cosmetics. The warden of the hostel has not taken leave for past 15 years which shows his commitment to the hostel. Despite a good playground, rooms and a vidhya volunteer to teach the subjects for 10th class, the students have not shown interest towards education, instances of which are like, books given to them are sold outside, the trunk box is taken home and only very few students turn up to the tuition in the hostel.

The pass percentages too indicate the fact that students are not keen in pursuing higher studies or have a greater concern towards future. Please find the snapshot of the pass percentages of the students for the respective years.
With this background, it would be better to show them a path that can reach and inculcate interest towards studies and career for the students. As a part of which, we have come up with the career guidance plan for the hostel covering

• Higher educational opportunities
• Job opportunities
• Scholarship opportunities

Career guidance programme that is scheduled in the government run hostel – sanghika sankshemam No.1 is a great success, with around 100 students being benefited from the guidance being offered. The document goes through the day activities that are sequentially followed; as everybody was immersed in their duties we have missed some photos. The programme started with the pledge, where all of us stood and took the born to serve oath.

“In the name of my nation I dedicate myselves to serve the backward communities. We have only one passion the rise of great nation” -Jai hind

Raja Sekhar gave a brief overview of career guidance, covering the three aspects of the programme. Higher education, Scholarships and job opportunities.

Introduction to Born to Serve by given by Srisailam. He talked about the activities that are taken in the past by born to serve group:

• Helped in raising money for a poor engineering graduate student for his lung operation Rs. 20000
• District level cricket tournament – to reach out to people
• Jan 1st fruit distribution in Vikarabad government hospital
• Jan 26th conducted quiz and drawing competitions
• CLP -1 to teach word, PowerPoint and DTP work
• CLP -2 to teach hardware and how to configure networks
• Night School where 5 students got passed and one of the students got a 13000 RANK and we are trying for his scholarship
• Village library in Gatepalli village Rs - 8000

Introduction to Technical Society – Rahul, who is the current president for technical society, said that technical society was formed to bridge the gap in educational standards that is experienced by many of the engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh due to lack of the needed skills by the faculty and also lack of equipment. To address these TS was formed. TS operate in 3 wings:

• Academic Wing - day to day classes are taken up by seniors to juniors, the objective of academic wing is to get pass marks for every individual
• Research Wing and - To encourage students to participate in the seminars, conferences and workshop
• Placement wing – to get the talented students the opportunity for placement, this wing also focuses on improving the needed skill

After which we have invited Vijaya Lakshmi Garu who is Head mistress for Dharma vidhya laya High School, Vikarabad as a guest speaker. She has got over 30 years of teaching experience which was clearly visible in her spell bound speech.
The speech covered, importance of education and moral values – Vijaya lakshmi garu talked about the importance of values apart from education. She asked students to enjoy their studies, and not feel burdened.

Warden of the hostel Mallapa garu told them his own story where he has to wait to have his lunch as his father did not send him money when he was staying in hostel. He told that it is not the case now and he has 5 students this year are being joined into college like Srichaitanya and Narayana from the hostel.
After the speeches, students were asked to talk about their experience or learning from the speech. Venkatesh said that he was moved by the telling that we should always be in the company of good people, and he promised to do so. He also told that he was lacking in Hindi and will work on it. He had eyes in his tears when was talking. There were few students who also talked about the same. Mallapa sir was given a momento from the chief guest. We gave a memento to the chief guest.

Crux of the project: Students were divided into two groups 8th and 9th class as one batch and 10th as a separate batch and career guidance was given simultaneously for both the batches with Kalyan, karthik and Ramakrishna taking Higher education sessions, Satish and Jay taking Job opportunities and scholarship options. The lead India video was shown to them and then the presentations started.

It was Kalyans day, he was completely involved that he has put the map of the higher education on the board and started explaining in the way they understood. This was the real tough task. I have shared few videos of the presentations.

Satish gave presentation on the higher educational opportunities to the students. I think there would be no better person to explain them in such a way that they understood. He made the session interactive by asking students questions and inquired if they had any doubts.

For Jay the task was easy it was he who prepared the Job opportunities presentation and for Jay teaching is his passion.