Venue: Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Hondar Baal, Chamrajnagar District (one route via Kollegal-Chamrajnagar  about 60kms and a second route via Kollegal-Kangalavaadi-Noolur via Yellandur is about 25 kms)

Date: 04-02-2006, Saturday

Objective: Career Guidance and Coaching for CET Examination and many other competitive exams.

Our team: Leading from the front K T Sateesh Gowda, Raghunandan, Manjunath Rao, Anjan Gowda, Mahesh. Mahesh Mattikere, Harish, Girish, Andalagi and Mahesh Malnad form the assisting team.

Aviratha association made an attempt to train and guide the rural students. In this attempt we went to a school located in the valley Hondar Baal of the mountain Biligirirangan Betta, Chamrajnagar. The opted was Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya. There was training cum career guidance program. The teaching and learning experience of our team.

The program was formally started by our team member Manjunath Rao. After the introduction of the team Raghunandan gave a speech about career counseling and taught about introductory speech and discussion opened. There was parallel speech in Kannada and English, which emphasized about 3D’s which one has to follow in life, they are Discipline, Dedication and Determination. We emphasized about the importance of 9th standard, the preparation pattern to be followed. Next pre-10th standard, the all important 10th standard, how the competitive environment supports, boosts the performance of students to think big and make big etc.

A cricketer has value only if he is a member of the playing eleven, similarly if we have to succeed in life by earning name and fame we should work hard to raise ourselves to the place of a key cricketer of the team. Any talented person is no longer respected once the position is lost. We need to stay in our position and build on the success; most importantly we need to be consistent with our work, A person by name Baskar Mohammed Ali would take all the attack of the opposition and still continue strongly and persistently towards the next round successfully. Many such examples were given to the students to understand and realize the importance.

Later they were explained about different kinds of job opportunities. Firstly after SSLC, they have a varied choice in the likes of PUC, Diploma, ITI, NTTF, GTTC and many other technical courses. The usefulness of these courses was also dealt briefly. We emphasized that the students should realize that the education they pursue will lay the foundation for their life. Later we explained the opportunities available after PUC. Following this we explained about the various competitive exams they could attempt, there was a break following this. Utilizing the break time to the maximum Anjan Gowda described about his experience of life in a boarding school. Later he explained the importance of communication skills, body language, personality development etc. He emphasized about the leadership, the qualities of the leader.

In the post break session Raghu emphasized about the competitive exams again. The students got to know more about different competitive exams like GATE, MAT and CAT. The students were advised to take up AIEEE along with CET. With that the time allotted to us was completed. There was a small questionnaire period, in this duration we addressed the doubts and queries of the students who had dreams and potentials of becoming IPS officers, scientists, astronomers etc. After the completion of this round, the ex-student of the school Mahesh did the vote of thanks. The efforts of another ex-student of the school was recognized and honoured. This student is Mr. Shiva Prasad who is now settled in the US. Like the previous year the old student association would donate books required by the students preparing for CET. Along side the success of this program was attributed to Sateesh Gowda, Raghunandan, the entire team, the co-operation extended by the school management was acknowledged.

The program was officially announced closed. Even after the close of program the students were found to be in small groups surrounding our friends Venu, Raghu, Anjan, Mahesh, asking more doubts, queries. The director-teacher of the career assistance centre of the school Mr. Naveen Kumar told us about the lack of infrastructure, state-of-art facility faced by the students preparing for the competitive exams in the boarding school. They requested the association to keep them posted about latest developments in careers, jobs, education systems, technology. We went to the clean and hygienic dining hall, noted that it was self service system here. Like other boarding schools even this place was creatively decorated with the charts, poster and messages written about the important information about food, nutrient values it carries etc. Lastly we need to acknowledge the discipline, time management, environmental awareness of the students and the local people helped the success of the program. The efforts of Mr. Naveen and other ex-students of the school were remembered again. With this happy and content feeling the Aviratha team started to pack off…