Rotary Midtown has donated Rs3 lakh to Adamya Chetana Trust to start the scheme which will initially cover at least 300 girl students from families below the poverty line.
Buoyed by the success of the midday scheme in government schools of the country, where tremendous improvement in attendance has been recorded since the introduction of meals for children at school, a small effort has now been made to extend the scheme to college students as well. Rotary Midtown, Bangalore, in association with Adamya Chetana Trust, an NGO, has started the midday meal scheme for poor children attending the Basavanagudi Junior College.
The government-run college for girls is the first institute of higher education offering the midday meal in the state. “The scheme has been introduced without any funding from the government,” said Tejaswini Ananthkumar, president of the Adamya Chetana Trust.
“For every 100 students joining school, only 25 reach high school. And of those, only about five proceed to college-level education. There is a great need to help more children avail higher levels of education,” explained Ananthkumar.
Rotary Midtown has donated Rs3 lakh to Adamya Chetana Trust to start the scheme.
“Our aim is to help students who come from families below the poverty line reach higher levels of education, and complete their education successfully. We have tied up with the trust to retain students in college, giving them meals as an incentive,”
said Quresh Merchant, former president of Rotary Midtown, Bangalore.
“It would be a pity if students were to drop off the education system because their parents are poor. We want to help the students at least with one meal,” Merchant said. To begin with, nearly 300 girl students from families below the poverty line would benefit from the scheme.
“We will consider extending the scheme after studying the circumstances of the other students,” said Merchant. “Strict vigilance would be maintained over the quality of food supplied,” said Shashidhar Patil, president, Rotary Midtown.
Seethalakshmi, former principal of the Basavanagudi Junior College, first suggested introducing meals for college students. She drew inspiration from the work of the Akshaya Patra Foundation, whose midday meal schemes in government schools across eight states in the country are reported to have significantly lessened the rate of dropouts and increased attendance.
A 2006 report by research firm AC Nielsen said: “Significant improvements in attendance were measured in schools where midday meals are provided. School attendance increased by 11.67%.”
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