One lakh Ekal Vidyalayas for Vanvasis by 2011

By VSK, Chennai

Friends of Tribal Society through its Ekal Vidyalaya programme, takes education to the remote Vanvasi pockets in the country, where electricity, roads and infrastructure were a rarity, Shri M.L. Jain, national secretary of the Society informed that the programme now reached to four lakh villages in the country. The Ekal Vidyalayas (one-teacher schools) work on the principle of taking the school to the children if the children were unable to attend it. Currently, there were 23,192 Ekal Vidyalayas in the country. By 2011, the society was aiming to have one lakh Ekal Vidyalayas all over the country. Tamil Nadu alone had 830 Ekal Vidyalayas. Recently, the Coimbatore chapter of the Society was launched. The Coimbatore chapter aimed to cover 600 Vanvasi villages in the Nilgiris Biosphere. Presently, it was supporting 90 schools in Mettupalayam, Coonoor, Pykara, Masinagudi, Pandalur and Gudalur.