A new scheme offering early child education to the tiny tots of the slums in the city will be launched soon by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
Conceived and christened ‘Muskaan’ by GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar, the scheme seeks to impart quality early child education in 1,500 centres to be spread out in identified slums across the city.
“When children of other sections get the benefit of pre-school learning, why should children of these poor families be deprived of the same? That’s the gap we seek to fill and be able to prepare these young children for their coming years in schools and colleges,” he says.
For ‘Muskaan’, locations in the slums where at least 30 odd children in the age-group of two to five years could be gathered, are to be identified and then required infrastructure would be set up. Nearby community halls or such other facilities would be used for the purpose of running these schools between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. It is proposed to collect a nominal fee of Rs.50 from parents wishing to enrol their children in ‘Muskaan’ centres.
The Commissioner is looking at training material equal to the standards being used at the established pre-school centres. The manpower for the facilities are imparted adequate training.
“Teachers and instructors will be selected from the location itself and given a 45-day orientation and training at Rajiv Education & Employment Mission of Andhra Pradesh (REMAP),” he says.
Apart from the instructors, each centre is proposed to have an ayah who will also be selected from the place itself. Through 1,500 centres, the civic body will not only be able to provide pre-primary education for around 45,000 children but also help several women from the slums get trained as faculty members.
“These teachers can in future go for self-employment schemes and set up their own schools,” Mr. Somesh Kumar adds.
