After our first experiment in 2014, we decided to organize another Motivation Camp for our afterschool students last week.
Motivation Camps are rather common in India; however, during these events, students listen to “experts” in the academic world such as school presidents and local politicians who will, for a small sum of money, go on an on for hours about how important and fun studying is, without giving any useful and practical information and without interacting with the students.
During this event the Malar Trust staff gave an overview of all of the University’s fields of study, relating them to specific subjects learned in school. Moreover, all state sponsored financial aids available for underpriviledged students were illustrated. This is very important especially for the poorer families with which we work, given that they are often unaware of such aids.
Students who attended our Motivation Camp are both our 11th or 12th grade afterschool students who will need to decide within a couple of months on how and if to continue their studies as well as 8th to 11th graders. A few university students sponsored by Malar Trust grants also attended, talking about their experience and answering questions from the younger students.
Even if this seems like a small, unimportant event, these kids have a great need for direction. Blind ambition and ignorance often lead parents to sink deep in debt in order to enroll medicore students in private colleges to study engineering. Students who hate math enroll in the academically demanding group 1 (math, physics, biology) high school in hope of gaining admission to engineering or medicine. All of this happens in complete ignorance of all the alternatives offered by the vast number of faculties of the Indian University.
