The Olcott Memorial School is 
developing well, bpth academically and 
in other areas, under the guidance of 
Mrs Padma Srinath, who was 
appointed as Director of the school, 
and Dr Aruna, who is Coordinator of 
Studies with Mr G. Gautama as 
Secretary of the School. Dr Aruna is 
also Director of the Banyan Centre for 
Educators. The last annual check-up 
of children in the first three classes 
showed that no child suffered from 
manlnutrition, which may be 
attributed to the nutritious breakfast 
and midday meal provided. This is an 
achievement, considering the 
deprivation in which their families live. 
Improved health has helped children 
to perform better on the sports field. 
Teaqhers have benefited firom 
workshops organized by Banyan to 
upgrade skills and enlarge their 


perception of the educator's role. A 
year-long workshop on spoken 
En^ish, and another one on 

Mathematics curricula were very 
useful. Banyan will also collect data 
on careers and higher educational 
opportunities in order to guide 

children leaving school. 

The HPB hostel has now 30 
children, which is about twice the 

number it had before. They receive 
much more educational support than 
earlier under the new Warden, Mr 
Anantapadmanabhan, assisted by Mrs 
Girija Rangarajan. The Social Welfare 
Centre has continued to serve 

pre-school children (of whom there are 
about 150} and their mothers. 

During the year, more than three 
thousand scouts, guides and children 
camped in our beautiful Besant 
Camping Centre. Among them were 98 
deaf and dumb children and 58 tribal 
children from the neighbouring State 
of Karnataka. During their stay a 
number of children cleaned the beach 
as part of their study of environmental 
needs. A programme called ‘Dear 
Population* highlighted the multi¬ 
farious problems resulting from 
overpopulation. In all these camping 
activities, the emphasis was on 
cleanliness, character and protection 
of Nature. I take this opportunity to 
express hearty appreciation of the 
dedicated work done by the Director of 
the Camping Centre, Mr S. 
Venkataraman, and his colleague Mr 
Victor Frank. 

https://archive.org/stream/GeneralReport1998/General_Report_1998_djvu.txt