Our event
Westminster Briefing held it's "Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge Locally and Preparing for the Expected as well as the Unanticipated" full day conference, on 25th October 2007 at the Liberal Club in Westminster, London and approached thecarbonline.co.uk to offset the carbon emissions from this conference through the Indian rural schools solar lighting project.
Westminster Briefing funded the installation of solar lighting systems in 2 schools in rural Karnataka. This Indian rural schools solar lighting project offset the carbon generated by the delegates who attended including their travel, overnight hotel stays, venue energy use, postage and Westminster Briefing's office energy used organising the conference.
All the schools identified were located in remote areas very far off from town and had no access to electricity.
Solar Systems were provided to all the two schools and the systems were installed during the month of December 2007.
The impacts of the two solar lighting systems installed at these schools are multi-fold. A direct impact would be the saving that the school would be able to make in the cost of buying kerosene, valuable money that could be used for maintenance of the school building or for buying some educational aids that the school badly needed. Another direct impact would be the improvement in the regularity of classes, as often the non-availability of kerosene meant no light and hence no classes. The health and eye sight of the children would improve as they would not be reading under the dim light of a couple of kerosene lamps and would not be inhaling the smoke. The environment also benefits as these systems altogether ensure that in total 14 tonnes of carbon is not emitted into the atmosphere.
Background
It is a sad reality in India that despite her increasing growth in different sectors, qualitative basic education in rural areas is still a constitutional right unavailable to more than one third of its population. The reasons for this are many ranging from complex socio political factors to economic ones. At a very basic level, there is a dearth in resources and support which leads to poor educational quality, student disillusionment, low retention spans, high drop out rates, etc. In addition to efforts by State and Central governments to implement several rural education schemes, the concept of non formal schooling has gained momentum as it takes into consideration the needs and life experiences of students and teachers thus providing a convenient tutoring system.
However, since these schools are located in remote locations very often they do not have access to basic amenities to run the school smoothly. To accommodate the fact that most of the teachers work (other types of jobs) during the day, the schools operate in the evening. This would ensure regular attendance of students who are also caught up with chores during the day. Running the school in the evening means that in terms of lighting, the only source of power for such schools is small, smoky kerosene lamps, which give out a lot of very polluting smoke and hardly any light.
Project
It is this basic infrastructural need that led SELCO to identify these schools and provide solar lighting as a convenient decentralized solution.
In 2007 SELCO approached Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, a charitable trust that initiates, supports, and runs non-formal one-teacher schools (popularly known as Ekal Vidyalayas) to identify schools. Ekal is a movement to provide basic education, health, development and empowerment through a non formal school approach in tribal and rural areas. Typically, a school runs for about three hours per day during the evening in the local language. At every level, the Ekal Vidyalaya movement seeks the participation of local people involving the villagers in the creation of the school, the selection of the teacher, and the adaptation of the curriculum and schedule.
In its first phase SELCO, thecarbononline.co.uk and Ekal Vidyalaya installed solar lighting systems in four schools in two districts of Karnataka in June 2007. All the schools identified were located in remote areas very far off from town and had no access to electricity. They were run out of temporary buildings made of straw, coconut leaves and sticks. All the schools have classes during the late evening hours and used kerosene lamps.
In the second phase, four schools were similarly identified: one school in Belgaum district, two schools in Karwar district and one school in North Kanara district of Karnataka. Solar Systems were provided to all the four schools and the systems were installed during the month of December 2007.
Based on the survey done by the local SELCO service centre, it was felt that each of these schools required a SELCO Solar Lighting system with 2 lights, one for the classroom for the children to study and the second to provide light in the area outside the school where the children gathered for prayers, eating some snacks that they brought, etc.
Progress
To date, 2 light systems have been completely installed in the four schools above. Three more schools are in the final stages of installation and a report following this one will be drafted shortly regarding the details of those installations.
Mendi village Tq: Khanapur (Belgaum)-15 students, 300+ people
Talewadi village Tq: Khanapur (Belgaum)-16 students, 250+people
Bicholi Tq: Khanapur, Dist: Belgaum- 30 students
Bori Village
Impact
The impacts of the four solar lighting systems installed at these schools are multifold. A direct impact would be the saving that the school would be able to make in the cost of buying kerosene, valuable money that could be used for maintenance of the school building or for buying some educational aids that the school badly needed. Another direct impact would be the improvement in the regularity of classes, as often the non-availability of kerosene meant no light and hence no classes. The health and eye sight of the children would improve as they would not be reading under the dim light of a couple of kerosene lamps and would not be inhaling the smoke.
The Future
There are many thousands of other non-formal schools, all over India (the Ekal Vidyalaya foundation itself runs 593 non-formal schools in Karnataka) and most of these schools do not have electricity and use kerosene lamps. If solar lights can be installed in these schools, it will bring a drastic improvement in the result of the effort to bring about basic literacy to a large segment of India’s population. Solar lighting will also result in improvement in quality of living in those villages. Many of the schools also require computers and other educational aids all of which require power. In the future continuous development of innovative financing projects using carbon offsets can help power more schools to improve basic infrastructure services thus contributing in a small way to provide quality basic education.