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The school and the area
Free Schools India is a small organisation dedicated to the provision of high quality education for girls, in an environment of complete safety. The 345 girls studying this year at our school in Chakarsi Village are learning well: in a state of 200 million people, this year 4 out of 17 girls scored so highly on their senior secondary (high school) examinations that they were in the top 1% in the state, and are now receiving government scholarships to study sciences at university. The appeal of our school is clear and strong: girls have been travelling from surrounding villages as far away as 12 kilometres (about 8 miles) to attend this school, in a social context where parents are often unwilling to let girls travel beyond their own village.
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Free Schools India is a small organisation dedicated to the provision of high quality education for girls, in an environment of complete safety. The 345 girls studying this year at our school in Chakarsi Village are learning well: in a state of 200 million people, this year 4 out of 17 girls scored so highly on their senior secondary (high school) examinations that they were in the top 1% in the state, and are now receiving government scholarships to study sciences at university. The appeal of our school is clear and strong: girls have been travelling from surrounding villages as far away as 12 kilometres (about 8 miles) to attend this school, in a social context where parents are often unwilling to let girls travel beyond their own village.
Click on link for full article
Education and development
For the people of Chakarsi, the village where we have built our first school, life has not changed very much in a lifetime. Dada-ji, who is in his eighties and is a close friend of our family, has lived and worked in the area for almost his entire life, and has seen the region stagnate through that period. Dada-ji remembers India under colonial rule, as well as the move towards independence and the subsequent upheaval. He has seen how India was administered during colonial times, and says that things were much more orderly then, and that since independence there has been a slide into ‘dogs’ rule’. He, along with many others, would love to see India ’s general situation and prospects improve and return to order, but under domestic rule this time.
Click on link for full article
For the people of Chakarsi, the village where we have built our first school, life has not changed very much in a lifetime. Dada-ji, who is in his eighties and is a close friend of our family, has lived and worked in the area for almost his entire life, and has seen the region stagnate through that period. Dada-ji remembers India under colonial rule, as well as the move towards independence and the subsequent upheaval. He has seen how India was administered during colonial times, and says that things were much more orderly then, and that since independence there has been a slide into ‘dogs’ rule’. He, along with many others, would love to see India ’s general situation and prospects improve and return to order, but under domestic rule this time.
Click on link for full article
Why girls' education
Readers of this website might be wondering why we are catering for girls only in our school, and might be thinking that this is unfair, and wondering what will happen to the boys in the area. This section is designed to give you a fairly good picture of why we have decided to make our schools girls-only.
In just a few short words, the two broad, main reasons why we have made this decision is becausepeople in the village told us that this is what they really need and want, and because girls in India, and Uttar Pradesh in particular, are far behind in development and have fewer opportunities than boys, so they simply need it more.
Click on link for full article
Readers of this website might be wondering why we are catering for girls only in our school, and might be thinking that this is unfair, and wondering what will happen to the boys in the area. This section is designed to give you a fairly good picture of why we have decided to make our schools girls-only.
In just a few short words, the two broad, main reasons why we have made this decision is becausepeople in the village told us that this is what they really need and want, and because girls in India, and Uttar Pradesh in particular, are far behind in development and have fewer opportunities than boys, so they simply need it more.
Click on link for full article