From: President, Tibetan Children’s Village Head
Office, Dharamshala
To: TCV Sponsors
Date: 27th July, 2020
Subject: Wuhan COVID-19 Pandemic – TCV Safe
Firstly, I deeply apologize that it has taken me some months to inform our dear sponsors and friends on how we are coping up with this unprecedented Wuhan COVID-19 global pandemic.
Here in
India, after lifting of the lockdown-3 at the end of May 2020, the situation on
the spread of this viral disease has gone like wild fire mainly because of
people’s migration and the Government trying hard to bring the country’s
economy back to normal.
All the
talks about social distancing in a country with 1.2 billion people are
difficult and as a result, today India is the third largest country infected
after Brazil and the United States. Although the reported infected cases have
now crossed over 1.3 million but the consoling part is that the recovery rate
is quite high at 63.5% and death rate low at 2.37% and active cases at 34.17%,
which is something to hope for the better. And in this regard we continue to
say our prayers.
Despite
the grave situation, I am happy to inform you that our children, home mothers
and coworkers in all our branches are safe and sound. At the same time, we
continue to take every step of precautionary measures including creation of
quarantine facilities within the campus itself if need arise although except
Ladakh, all other branches do not fall under the hotspot danger zones.
At the
time of my last notification in May, we had a total of around 900 children
during the lockdown period. This has now come down to 382 children remaining in
our schools. This number has come down mainly because class X and XII students
have now left our schools early this month for their homes.
As
informed earlier, our schools have been closed since 3rd March and all other
schools in India since the time of lockdown-1 period. We were hopeful the
Central Government would announce school reopening from the first week of June
but this was not to be because of the situation getting worse and too dangerous
for children.
It is
now expected that the Government might announce the reopening from mid-August
but as of present, this looks very uncertain. Even if the Government allows
reopening from mid-August, TCV will have to be very certain if we can open our
schools because of children being all in resident boarding situation.
We will
have to wait for the Government’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and see
whether we can comply with these directives. If we can comply with the SOPs,
our schools will reopen in a phased-out manner starting with class XII & X
and gradually the other classes.
But we
will certainly keep our sponsors informed on the development. Although our
schools are closed for all these many months, I am happy to inform here that
our subject teachers have started online teachings. Except for students in very
remote areas where there is no internet connection, a larger number of students
are attending online teachings given by our teachers. The teachers can work
from their own homes with their computers or go to the school computer lab.
For
those remaining in our schools, we have given internet connections wherever
possible. With this arrangement, the children’s class syllabus is being covered
to some extend but the drawback is that there is no personal touch as in a
normal classroom teaching environment.
Our
class X & XII students had to bear the brunt of this pandemic – both
physically having to go through the lockdown and mentally because of their
remaining exam papers. Some of them had one or two remaining exam papers to
appear when the Government lockdowns were announced.
The
Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), New Delhi finally announced the
dates for appearing in these remaining exams early this month, but finally had
to cancel because of parents’ pressures and at the intervention of the Supreme
Court.
The
Board decided to allocate the marks for the remaining papers in accordance with
the formula worked out by them. We had a total of 545 students who appeared in
class XII leaving exams and the overall pass percentage in our 5 schools is
99%.
TCV
Dharamshala, Gopalpur, Suja, Selakui had 100% pass marks while Bylakuppe had
96.4%. We congratulate our School Principals, the teachers and the students for
this excellent result that made us all very proud.
The
students will now proceed for their higher studies as and when the college
admissions start in September or so. Since our expenses on higher studies is
the largest, I appeal to all our sponsors to continue to support them in their
higher studies to realize their academic aspirations and achieve in life to
serve “Others Before Self” as TCV motto enshrines.
The
class X Board exam result was equally encouraging. We had a total of 602
students who appeared with overall 92.15% passed. They will now move to our
branch schools for their +2 level schooling into Science, Commerce and
Humanities subjects – Science to TCV Selakui, Science & Commerce to TCV
Bylakuppe while Humanities to TCV Suja, Gopalpur and Dharamshala.
We are
still working from our homes and having no school activities, we deeply regret
that we will not be bringing out the summer issue of our newsletter “Metok”.
But we are hopeful of bringing out the winter issue before the close of the
year.
I am
sorry for this rather long letter but before I wind up I take this opportunity
to express our deepest gratitude and thanks for your continued support for the
care and education of our children.
To
sustain the life giving works of the organization, we will continue to stand in
need of your financial support and goodwill.
THANK
YOU! With best wishes and stay safe!
Yours
sincerely,
S/d
(Thupten Dorjee)
