Civil Engineering Society - University of Moratuwa: August 2014

SUHATHSA 2014 – PHASE_1

SUMMARY

SUHATHSA is a project from the CES of University of Moratuwa that helps the students from schools which are with lack of facilities. Matale was selected for project 2014 phase-1 and a two day seminar was held to the students from around 5 schools about facing the three maths stream subjects. The seminar was appreciated, and commented for a lack of time, expected to be held widely in the future.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

It is an annual project by CES of University of Moratuwa; SUHATHSA of 2014 has been decided to be held to Tamil people separately as the phase-1 unlike the previous years. A set of guidance seminars were held by the Civil Engineering students for Maths, Physics and Chemistry. On 08 and 09 of March, two days of the weekend, the seminar was held in Pakkiyam national school, Matale, as the Tamil students from Matle experience a lack of guidance on the GCE A/L exams. The Seminar was held as a paper class model with a model paper for each subject.

OBJECTIVE/S AND ACHIEVEMENTS OR RESULTS

OBJECTIVE

The main objective was to increase the number of students entering the university. Rather than doing a paper, canvassing for that was the main action and the desired achievement was to encourage the students for that and hopefully that was achieved.

RESULTS

The students were requested to fill an evaluation form during the seminars asking about the outcomes they got from the seminar, along with their comments. The forms were analyzed and the following results were gained.

DESCRIPTION	Maths	Physics	Chemistry
The seminar was useful	4.1	4.5	4.6
The seminar was efficient and effective.	4.5	4.6	4.2
The teaching was good.	4.2	4.2	4.2
The questions were useful.	4.0	3.9	4.0
New approaches were taught.	4.0	4.0	3.9
Given questions were perfect.	4.7	4.7	4.5
Time management was good.	4.6	4.2	4.2
Explanations were plenty.	3.9	4.7	3.8

Many comments were written, predominantly appreciations and thanking. Most of them feel the lack of time to cover the entire syllabus and discussions in a weekend time, request for a future seminar with enough time to cover all. The teaching style was far too speed and hard to understand for them, which was updated spontaneously, due to the dialect and the gap of learning style.

CONSTRAINS / CHALLENGES

The main challenge was that we had to adapt to the students style of learning to do the discussions. Added to that, as per the students, the time was not enough. In our perspective, as we were not the ones who manages the time, the time management was difficult.

SUGGESTION AND RECOMMENDATION

Matale is a very rural area with unbelievably lack of resources for Advanced Level education, it is better to conduct future projects there, as the students are very keen for these kinds of works.

QUOTES

There is a community of parents in Matale, doing many works for educational development in Matale. They appreciated the project and promised to give their full support in the future projects.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE SEMINAR.

SUHASTHA - PHASE 2

SUMMARY
SUHATHSA is a project from the CES of University of Moratuwa which was introduced to help the students from schools with lack of facilities. Moratuwa MahaVidyalaya in Moratuwa was selected for the Suhastha project - phase 2 in 2014. It was a three day seminar which was held on 23^rd, 24^th and 25^thJuly for students in grade 11 who are facing G.C.E. O/L. Mathematics, English and Science which were three main subjects were covered in the seminar. The seminar was conducted successfully with the enthusiastic contribution of Civil Engineering undergraduates of 2011 batch.

DAY 1
The very first day, on 23^rd of July, we gathered at the Buddhist Hall, at 7.30 a.m. and the children were also gathering there with hopeful faces. The teacher in charge for Suhastha project of Moratuwa Maha Vidyalaya introduced us to the children. And then principle madam also addressed the gathering, specially mentioning our intentions on this project and also asked the students to take the best from our seminars. Then Gayan Hewage, the chair person of the project explained what we were willing to share with them.

Soon after the meeting, we started the seminar on Mathematics, which was conducted by Anuruddha Herath. We prepared and distributed a model mathematics paper, which was in the format of the G.C.E. O/L paper. As we hadn’t enough time to complete the whole model paper in 5 hours, we decided to discuss the second part of the paper. First part was to be distributed later together with the marking scheme.

We asked the students to answer the second part of the paper and gave them for about half an hour. In that half an hour, they asked so many questions on the model paper and all of us went to each student and helped them as much as we could. So at the end of that half an hour, we were almost familiar with them. While Anuruddha discussed the problems on the board, we sat among the students and gave solutions to questions they raised.

First part of the session was concluded at 11 a.m. We were provided with refreshments too. After the break, we started discussing the rest of the model paper again. We tried to understand the situation of students, and we made the situation easy for them to come forward and to clarify their own questions. At the end of the first day, they were very familiar with us. They had a lot of things that they wanted a good clarification about. We helped them as much as we could and we thought we could do our best within our first day.

Day 1 of the Suhastha concluded with two inspiring and motivational speeches by Sumudu Herath and Gihan Alwis.

At the end of the day we told them to share their ideas with us about the first day of seminar. So they send us notes saying how they were inspired by us. And specially two students were saying that they will definitely come to University of Moratuwa one day. That was the best output we got on that day.

DAY 2

Second day of Suhastha was held on 24^th of July. Seminar commenced at 7.30 am. It was an English seminar conducted by Shanika Sandeepani. We prepared and distributed a model English paper, which was in the format of the G.C.E. O/L paper.

First part of the session was concluded at 10.30 am. As usual school had arranged refreshments for us. And also we had the opportunity to celebrate the birthday of one student and she had brought cakes for us as well.

After the break Shanika made sure this session was more interactive. So the students participated in the session much eagerly. On the paper there was a certain dialogue to be filled in and they were asked to fill it by themselves. Then many students were given the opportunity to act this dialogue. Students found this session very interesting because they had never experienced a seminar like this before.

Day 2 of the Suhastha concluded with two inspiring and motivational speeches by Hasara Samadhi and Anuruddha Herath. By reading the feedback letters they gave, we understood that the second day of the seminar was also as successful as the first day.

DAY 3

Third day of Suhastha was held on 25^th of July. As usual seminar commenced at 7.30 am. It was a Science seminar conducted by Viduranga Jayathilaka and Lalindra Sandeepa. We prepared and distributed a model Science paper which was in the format of the G.C.E. O/L paper.

First, the students were given time to go through the question paper. Most of the students were not thorough with the subject. Therefore we voluntarily shared our knowledge with them. First part of the session was done by Viduranga. He discussed the first part of paper with theory explanations as well. First part of the seminar was concluded at 11.15a.m.

Even though the number of our batch mates who attended the last day of Suhastha was large in number school staff generously provided us with refreshments. Every staff member we met was keen to appreciate our work and they helped us immensely.

After the break we distributed the answer sheets of bio part. Lalindra Sandeepa continued the rest of paper discussion at 11.45 am with theory explanations altogether.

Students seemed to take the most out of this session. We were sitting among the students and helping them by adding more knowledge and giving answers to their problems. They had a lot of questions to be solved we tried our best to help them.

Suhastha third day session was concluded with inspiring and motivational speeches by Udari Rathnayake, Dananja Hirandi and Gayan Hewage.

Then a student from the Vidyalaya thanked us for supporting and encouraging them to succeed in this turning point of their life. The four students who conducted the sessions invited all the students to contact them anytime, if they need more help in studies.

In the end of session the Principal madam of Moratu Maha Vidyalaya, K.G.Jayalath Menike joined the session and accepted our donation of two steel cupboards of Rs.23,000. Dananja Hirandi and Anuruddha Herath who contributed to make Suhastha a success handed over the cupboards to two students from Moratu Maha Vidyalaya.

Then the principal madam addressed the students and pointed out the importance of our project Suhastha and encouraged them to do their best in the examination.

As usual we received a lot of feedback notes about the seminar. Most of the feedbacks were heart touching and we could conclude that this was a very good opportunity for them and they have taken maximum out of it.

Suhastha was indeed a hope, a helping hand, a caring guide to a group of children, really in need of it. We 2011 Civil engineering batch of University of Moratuwa was glad to be a part of it.