13-year Malavath Poorna from Andhra Pradesh created history by becoming the youngest girl in the world to climb Mount Everest. The organisation backing Poorna and more children like her is the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS), a state-funded educational trust that runs residential schools across the state. The society works with the under-privileged children of the society, and prepares them for the world ahead.
BoomNews's Show #IndiaHangout spoke to Dr Praveen Kumar, secretary, TSWREIS. "Residential schools can bring a drastic change in the lives of marginalised children," Kumar said.
Some of the key points made by Kumar on the society and its students:
* 290 schools under APSWREIS, 170,000 students
* We take care of everything, they don't have to pay for anything
* These children have exceptional talent
* Gap between the rich and the poor is opportunity
* What we have done is give opportunity to the poor
* 79 students qualified for IIT advanced exams this year
* We have started medicine, CA courses this year
* For every 1 boys school, there are 2 girls schools in our society
* 120,000 girl students; we are concentrating on girls
* As a state, we have taken responsibility to educate girls
* First challenge we have is getting quality teachers
* India should have creative students and teachers:
* Teacher training is the most important thing to happen
* It can be easily scalable and replicated
* Rs 30,000/year/child is all that is needed to get amazing results
* If you include salaries, it could go up to Rs 60,000/child/year
* Students attain the value system of teachers
