Gift Education To An Underprivileged Child and Strengthen The Nation

Jharkhand being a backward state in terms of literacy having literacy rate of just 67.2 %, takes the state to the rank of 25th in the list of Indian states. The very reason for this backwardness is that, since times, the maximum parts of the state have been overlooked because of which people here got diverted towards the wrong ways of demanding their rights like Naxalism and other criminal activities. The girls of this state have the highest rate of getting trafficked and indulging into prostitution, the reason being the poverty as well as lack of education among the community. Due to increasing cost of quality education, the children are compelled to get dropped out from the educational streams.

Pratigya is committed to Quality School Education for children and runs an innovative programme - Education Voucher. Under this Programme, children from disadvantaged section get a Voucher with which they can study in a school of their choice. If the child or parent is unsatisfied, they can change the school too. Here money follows the child, not the school.

Presently this project is being run by Pratigya in two districts of Jharkhand – Ranchi (urban) and Khunti (rural) covering over 130 students from socially-economically backward families. 80 students from three urban slums, namely Jagannathpur, Ranchi are studying in different schools with education vouche and 50 students from a village called Chandapara in Lodhma, Karra Block, Khunti District have received Education Voucher and are studying in different schools of their choice.

Initially in the year 2007-08, Vouchers were given to 40 deprived children (mainly tribal), for studying in better schools, from Jagannathpur and the number of children benefited under this programme has reached to over 1000 in the last 13 years. Pratigya intends to include over 1000 children under this project in next 3 years and act as a Policy Demonstrator for sustainable model of Quality School Education on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

Scholarships are awarded to the students from Class I through V, after which it can be extended till standard 10th, provided they meet the requirements of the project. The scholarship covers the annual fees of the school. In certain circumstances the books are also provided by Pratigya, to extremely poor and needy students, subject to the availability of funds.