The Esha Summer Project 2023 got off to a nice start with 55 registrations. Most of these registrations were through social media.
As usual, the students were asked for their choice of project.
Orientations were held for students who opted for project management, video making, and research.
Eventually, three students were part of the research project. They did some analysis and helped us create tables and graphs that went into the report.
Students dropped out at various points in the program.
We observed the following:
A. Students who opted for video making dropped out when they realised that they have to follow a process and create an educational video, not a social media video. They did try but were not able to make an explainer.
B. Some students had travel that interfered with the summer program.
C. All the students who opted for Project Management dropped out because of the quantum of work. One student was blacklisted. It is recommended that project management should not be given to students. This experiment has failed, yet again.
D. Some students, who chose research, were not able to devote the time required to do the analysis. The learning for us is that high school students are not able to tabulate data or make basic graphs. That expectation should be corrected. Further, there is a real time crunch among high school students.
About 25 students were selected for participation. 11 students completed the program, and only one of them got a Certificate of Commendation this year.
Our objective at Esha every year is that the students should get sensitised to the needs of blindness. Am very happy to report that the only student who did Blind Walks this year, was very touched at the end of the program. The other students who participated in research or recording also wrote to us that they learnt something as part of the project.
One difference this year was that English screenreaders are now relatively mature. So, we did not get English content recorded. Content was contributed and is being uploaded on the Esha website for free download. Like CLABIL this content is also academic or literary in nature.
Lessons for the next year
1. We should be more friendly with the volunteers.
2. We need to keep the parents more involved throughout the process. Sometimes, students forget to tell us about travel plans. parents do this better.
3. Project management should not be given to students at any level - including college.
4. We shoudl try to get more college students.
5. This year, we could not convince children to do Blind Walks. Next time, we should try and get more blind walks done.
Output
Audio Files - 12 audio files in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and English (1 file on lakes of Bengaluru).
Content - 12 question banks submitted in History, Physics, English, Chemistry, and Biology.
Blind Walks - Two blind walks covering 12 people.
Research - 3 students
Partial work is not listed in this output. Work done but not found to be of suitable quality is also not listed.
