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My uncle, Dr. Rakesh Pandey, has started a school on our land (National Academy Public School) in a remote UP village by the name of Lamhua. It's around 200 KM from the city of Lucknow and 50 KM from the small town of Sultanpur.
Although today he is a Professor of Zoology in a Govt University, having grown up in the same village, he has seen the hardships kids from rural India go through because of poor quality of education. And he realises that while he was lucky, most aren't. It's been his life long dream to open a school which can cover these gaps and try to bring these rural India bred students at par with city kids in terms of education while keeping alive the culture and roots of ancient India. All this on a " No Profit - No Loss " basis
He has already spent more than 1Cr in setting up the infrastructure for the school. Because of the pandemic the admissions got delayed. Even though the school has 109 students who are registered, most of them have not started paying fees. On a monthly basis the school is incurring a cost of 1.5 L (75k for teachers, rest for other staff and bills) which is getting hard to be borne by my family.
However the greatest issue is getting these rural kids to commit to join the school everyday - attendance and new enrollments are getting disrupted because of no transportation facility. After having spoken to the villagers around , we have decided we need to invest in mini school buses as kids , as small as 4 years old, live upto 10 KM away with no parents free or willing to make an effort and drop their kids at the school. Cost of two 30 seater buses will go upto 40 lakhs.
Additionally, we want to build another room and get atleast 10 computers. The modern education in the rural setup is not complete without computers. This setup would incur another 10 lakhs.
Putting all this together, we need atleast 50 lakhs to even ensure the current 109 kids get good quality education and we are able to enroll a lot more students who otherwise might not have even dreamt of going to a school.
Although today he is a Professor of Zoology in a Govt University, having grown up in the same village, he has seen the hardships kids from rural India go through because of poor quality of education. And he realises that while he was lucky, most aren't. It's been his life long dream to open a school which can cover these gaps and try to bring these rural India bred students at par with city kids in terms of education while keeping alive the culture and roots of ancient India. All this on a " No Profit - No Loss " basis
He has already spent more than 1Cr in setting up the infrastructure for the school. Because of the pandemic the admissions got delayed. Even though the school has 109 students who are registered, most of them have not started paying fees. On a monthly basis the school is incurring a cost of 1.5 L (75k for teachers, rest for other staff and bills) which is getting hard to be borne by my family.
However the greatest issue is getting these rural kids to commit to join the school everyday - attendance and new enrollments are getting disrupted because of no transportation facility. After having spoken to the villagers around , we have decided we need to invest in mini school buses as kids , as small as 4 years old, live upto 10 KM away with no parents free or willing to make an effort and drop their kids at the school. Cost of two 30 seater buses will go upto 40 lakhs.
Additionally, we want to build another room and get atleast 10 computers. The modern education in the rural setup is not complete without computers. This setup would incur another 10 lakhs.
Putting all this together, we need atleast 50 lakhs to even ensure the current 109 kids get good quality education and we are able to enroll a lot more students who otherwise might not have even dreamt of going to a school.
