Project ISR

Topic - Education for unprivileged children

Project ISR

Right to education (RTE)

Submitted by – Rohit WaliaRoll Number - HPGD/AP14/0117

Education"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use

to change the world."- Nelson Mandela

Slogan Aspire Achieve Be the change

IntroductionOne of the best ways to avoid being poor as an adult is to obtain a good education. People who have higher levels of academic achievement and more years of schooling earn more than those with lower levels of human capital. This is not surprising, since economists believe that schooling makes people more productive and that wages are related to productivity. Yet in modern America, poor children face an elevated risk for a variety of adverse educational outcomes. According to the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 16 percent of fourth-grade students eligible for free lunch score at proficient levels in reading, compared with 44 Percent of fourth graders whose family incomes are above the eligibility cut-off for free lunch. The disparity in math scores between those above and below the eligibility threshold for free lunch is even larger. Equally large disparities in achievement test scores are observed between whites and minority racial or ethnic groups, with test score gaps that show up as early as three or four years of age. In fact, the black-white test score gap among twelfth graders may not be all that different in magnitude from the gap observed among young children when they first start school. Understanding why children’s outcomes vary so dramatically along race and class lines in America is central to formulating effective education policy interventions. Disagreements about how to improve schooling outcomes for poor children stem in part from different beliefs about the problems that underlie the unsatisfactory outcomes in many of our nation’s public schools. Broadly speaking, critics tend to invoke, at least implicitly, one of the following explanations for why children in high-poverty schools are not performing well as Akanksha would like add on their say with similar ignite pushing society towards betterment:

The Akanksha Foundation is a non-profit organisation with a mission to provide children from low-income communities with a high-quality education, enabling them to maximize their potential and transform their lives. Akanksha works in the field of education, initiating school reform through The School Project, and providing a supplemental education through the Akanksha centres. Currently, Akanksha reaches out to over 6500 children through two models: the after-school or center model and the School Project. Akanksha has 3 centers and 21 schools in Mumbai and Pune. The School Project is a venture to open high-quality schools serving children from low-income communities in Mumbai and Pune. These schools are in partnership with local municipalities, with the vision of creating small clusters of model schools in these cities that can be used to impact the mainstream education system.Through the centers, a commitment is made to support each child by providing a strong educational foundation, good time, self-esteem and values, and to help them plan how they can earn a steady livelihood as a step towards improving their standard of living.

“Akanksha started with the simple belief that human beings have limitless potential, and that all children, regardless of their background, deserve a chance to discover and realise

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this potential. We believe that a high-quality education that equips children with the right character and skills offers the most potential to break the cycle of poverty and help children from less-privileged communities lead empowered lives.Measurement and Evaluation helps us monitor our progress towards these goals, helps us understand the impact we are having on the children, families and communities we serve, and ultimately holds us accountable to society in a quantifiable and transparent manner.

Schools serving poor and minority students have fewer resources than they need. In this case, a potential solution would be to provide more money to disadvantaged schools. Tended to be disappointing, and helped contribute to a sense of pessimism about the ability of schools to improve poor children’s life chances.In contrast, we offer a message of tempered optimism. Over the past few decades, the technology of education-policy evaluation has improved dramatically, making it much easier to detect moderately-sized program impacts within the complex environment that determines schooling outcomes. The available evidence reveals a number of potentially promising ways to improve the learning outcomes of low-income children. This is not to say that everything works: many current and proposed education policies either have no empirical support for their effectiveness, or in some cases have strong empirical evidence for their ineffectiveness. The most successful educational interventions will reduce, but not eliminate, racial and social class disparities in educational outcomes. This is not a reason for either despair or inaction. The appropriate standard of success for policy interventions is that they generate net benefits, not miraculous benefits. Education policies that are capable of improving poor children’s schooling outcomes by enough to justify the costs of these policies are worth doing, even if these policies or programs by themselves are not enough to equalize learning opportunities for all children.

The School ProjectINTRODUCTION

The mission of The School Project is to create a model for high-performing schools that redefines what is possible for children from low-income communities, and has the potential to drive wider systemic reform. In India today, 96% of primary school age children are enrolled in school. The quality of learning indicators, however, is of persistently low levels– with low standards of education, up to 25% absenteeism amongst government school teachers, a 50% drop out rate between grade 1 and grade 5, and 90% dropout by grade 10.A few years after the millennium, there began a trend amongst people living in low-income urban communities of putting their children into low-fee or ‘affordable’ private schools. Today, approximately only 40% of the 1.1 million children living in the city of Mumbai attend government schools. In response, The Municipal Corporations of Pune (PMC) and Mumbai (MCGM) acknowledged the insufficient supply of English-medium schools and have initiated setting up of new municipal schools of this kind. Based on this organizational history and environmental context, Akanksha decided to step back and redefine its approach to its mission of equipping all children with an education that has the power to fundamentally transform their life trajectory. In 2006, Anu Aga, an Akanksha board member, approached the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to adopt a municipal school through the Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation (TSIF). The PMC granted permission for TSIF to run the KC

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Thackeray Vidya Niketan Municipal School, serving the scholarship students across the municipal schools in Pune from Standard 3 and above. Although Akanksha was initially an unofficial partner in this initiative, the seeds of The School Project were sown with the opening of the first school in June 2007.

In the first year of the school opening, TSIF and Akanksha chose to administer a 3rd party assessment called ‘ASSET’, an assessment, fairly new at the time, taken by a small pool of elite private schools. On this baseline assessment, the children performed anywhere from 30-70% below the mean. Eight months later, the students had bridged an achievement gap of nearly 25 percentage points— with some students performing near the mean. These promising initial results built confidence in the potential of schools to provide the kind of environment that children from low-income communities needed.

In 2008, Akanksha decided that working within the government system offered more scope to reach more children and one day be an advocate for education reform from within the system, using the case study of the Akanksha Schools as a model of what can work in public education. With 15 schools across both cities, this model continues to grow and thrive today.

The term Education is the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge. The "history of education In the Indian subcontinent began with teaching of traditional elements such as Indian religions, Indian mathematics, Indian logic at early Hindu and Buddhist centres of learning .

The right to education (RTE) is a universal entitlement to education, Overview

In the midst of plenty, many people still go hungry, live in poor housing without basic services such as water and toilets and grow-up without education.This is not just because of a lack of resources, but also because of negligence and discrimination. Governments are simply unwilling to do something about it. This is not an unfortunate reality of life, it is a shocking human rights scandal.

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The issue in detail: Justice

Many of the issues around poverty are known as “economic, social and cultural” (ESC) rights. They include:

• Rights at work, such as fair conditions of employment.• Right to education, including free and compulsory primary education.• Cultural rights of minorities and Indigenous Peoples.• Right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, such as access to quality health services.• Right to adequate housing, including protection from forced eviction.• Right to food, including being able to obtain nutritious food.• Right to water, including affordable clean water.• Right to sanitation, including access to a safe toilet.

Defines ‘free’ as removal of any financial barrier by the state that prevents a child from completing eight years of schooling Compulsory means- compulsory admission, attendance and completion of EE. Compulsion as compulsion on the state/ local bodies, rather than targeting parents, fundamental duty of parents to send children to schools Not enrolled/dropout children be admitted to age appropriate class Special training to enable such children to be at par with others Child so admitted entitled to completion of EE even after age 14 Softens barriers like birth certificate, transfer certificate, etc No child shall be psychologically abused by calling him/her ‘failed’ in any class upto class 8, or expelling him/her from school

For years it seemed almost impossible to challenge the government if you were denied these rights. Who do you complain to? Who will listen?A right that is recognized as a human right. According to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights the right to education includes the right to free, compulsory primary education for all an obligation to develop secondary education accessible to all, in particular by the progressive introduction of free secondary education.

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The right to education is universally recognized, the way it is interpreted at the national level differs substantially. This means that although every human being holds the same right regardless of any national law, the ways of securing this right vary greatly from location to location. For example, in some countries the right to education may be legally enforceable through national legislation, while in others it will be important to look to international law and standards. The term education refers to the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the power of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life; a degree, level, or kind of schooling: a university education; the result produced by instruction, training, or study: to show one's education; the science or art of teaching; pedagogic. School education is the basement for any child. There are some global issues in the child education. Around the world many children are facing the problems like poverty, sexual harassment, child labour etc. This is all because the education system is not affordable and the governments do not have

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROBLEMIn a country like India where there are children who starve for food, water and cannot spend time for studying and they work for getting one time meal a day.The dropouts in schools are high because of various reasons. These problems are because of two main reasons.

1. Education is not at affordable cost, government must bring some schemes2. Lack of interest, the teaching and learning strategy should be changed

The quality of education provided by the government system remains in question. While it remains the largest provider of elementary education in the country forming 80% of all recognized schools, it suffers from shortages of teachers, infrastructural gaps and several habitations continue to lack schools altogether. There are also frequent allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and mismanagement and appointments are based on political convenience

Methodology used to curb in challenges:-

• Meet with other professionals to discuss individual student needs and progress• Organize and direct the work of teacher assistants and parent volunteers• Supervise extra-curricular and after school activities• Attend meetings, seminars and professional development sessions

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• Deal with children's crises such as forgotten lunches, minor scrapes, family emergencies or not being picked up as scheduled.

THE PROPOSED SYSTEM This paper after development will cater to the needs of children of rural poor through a well-equipped ICT based education tool to capacitate teachers to adapt with technological innovations and its implementation in teaching process. This will facilitate the students to understand subjects through multi-dimensional perspective with the help of ICT. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 depict the interactive teaching-learning tool with multimedia applications. The major objective of this paper is to develop an interactive teaching-learning tool with multimedia applications for underprivileged children in rural schools.

• Evolve an ICT tool for teaching-learning • Developing internal mechanism to run the tool • Facilitate the schools to receive and operate the tool • Capacitate teachers and students to utilize the tool

Proved an increase in student exposure to educational ICT through curriculum integration has a significant and positive impact on student achievement, especially in terms of "Knowledge・Comprehension" · "Practical skill" and "Presentation skill" in subject areas such as mathematics, science, and social study

This practice focuses on three major innovative models: 1. Evolving a teaching-learning ICT tool based on 7th Standard (grade) syllabus a) Science and Social Science subjects as preliminary targets b) Utilizing multimedia tools c) Integrate available resources and develop additional materials d) Develop and establish internal dissemination system

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3 MAIN ADVANTAGES OF ICT TOOLS FOR EDUCATION

1‧ Through ICT, images can easily be used in teaching and improving the retentive memory of students.

2‧ Through ICT, teachers can easily explain complex instructions and ensure students' comprehension.

3‧ Through ICT, teachers are able to create interactive classes and make the lessons more enjoyable, which could improve student attendance and concentration.

 

3 MAIN DISADVANTAGES OF ICT TOOLS FOR EDUCATION

1‧ Setting up the devices can be very troublesome.

2‧ Too expensive to afford

3‧ Hard for teachers to use with a lack of experience using ICT tools

2. Facilitating the selected rural schools to receive the system a) Capacitating the teachers to implement the tool b) Capacitate the students to operate the system

3. Extend the application level of ICT tool to make it as interactive a) Select three schools located within adjoining villages b) Facilitate these schools to have an interactive link c) Create and run permanent system administrative unit in the Project site

The first step is the development of ICT based teaching learning tool for 7th Standard. The project focused the 7th Standard students as a preliminary step. There are psychological

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and educational justifications to stress the relevance of selecting 7th Standard as the basic unit and are described below,

A. Psychological

Age: The age of 7th Standard student is a major factor for choosing this group as the beneficiaries. Normally a child will get into 7th Standard when he/she turns 12 years of age. This age is a turning point towards teenage or adolescence. At 12, the children are standing in between their innocent childhood and adolescence. Adolescence will lure them to fantasies. This is a critical age where proper care, guidance and counselling shall be imparted. The major relevance of selecting these age group children as beneficiaries is that they can be easily inducted with novel ideas and prompt them to develop their skills in proper channel.

Vulnerability: This age group child is vulnerable to any external or internal coercion. The negative influences will hamper their lives and will end up in dropout or child labour. A positive change in education through opulent mechanisms can coax the students to pursue their studies in an interesting environment.

Behaviour: Major behavioural problems start at this age. The project evolved to promote the creative skill in Computer Science Students in our college to participate in societal welfare and development programmes. This will harness the negative impulses among school children to deviate from studies and will allure them to education. The College students will engineer their talents in a productive and innovative manner and it will give them responsibility in education and their role in nation building.

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Educational

Drop out: This age group is prone to school dropout as per various studies by different agencies and Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. This project aims to curtail the alarming rate of dropouts in the State.

Child labour: As an industrial location, State possesses numerous industries, small, medium and large. Poverty, illiteracy, socio-economic background etc play a major role in this condemned crime. This is a pioneer attempt by an academic institution to lend helping hands in a bigger way to erase child labour from our country.

Lack of facilities: Rural Schools in Tamil Nadu face inadequate infrastructure and other facilities. It does not have proper and facilitated rooms, desks, tables, benches, boards or other materials to support effective learning and teaching environment. Inadequate Teachers: The Teacher student ratio is 1:65/1:75 in rural schools in Tamil Nadu. This affects the discipline, learning environment and communication channels.

Lack of teaching aids: Government rural schools in Tamil Nadu rely on traditional chalk and talk methods and devoid of any modern teaching tools or aids to entice the students towards learning.

Poor economic status: The poor economic status of the schools is a major drawback in making the education system interesting attractive to the students.

CONCLUSION In the global world, India has to compete with many countries on various aspects besides many difficulties. Thus, the rural India can overcome the existing problems in schools by installing this project. Hence, this change in the teaching, learning strategy will provide quality education at affordable cost for rural based schools, changes and improves the teaching, learning strategy, improve the slow learners, equip and updates the knowledge of teachers.

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As a solution to overcome the existing problems in schools, this paper proposes an Interactive Teaching – Learning Tool. The objectives of this paper are to evolve an ICT tool for teaching – learning, develop an internal mechanism to run the tool, facilitate the schools to receive and operate the tool, and capacitate teachers, students to utilize the tool.

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HAS THE VISUALISER/DOCUMENT CAMERA INCREASED OR DECREASED INTERACTIVITY WITH CHILDREN?

 

All the teachers felt that the visualizer/document camera aided in increasing interactivity with children

2. HAS THE VISUALISER/DOCUMENT CAMERA IMPROVED CHILDREN'S CONCENTRATION?

 Over 90% of teachers felt that concentration in the classroom increased due to use of the visualizer/document camera.

3. HAS THE VISUALISER/DOCUMENT CAMERA CONTRIBUTED TO NARROWING THE GAP BETWEEN CHILDREN IN ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENTS?

 Over 78% of teachers felt that the visualizer/document camera aided in bringing children closer together in academic achievements.

4. HAVE YOU HAD MORE FUN WITH THE VISUALISER/DOCUMENT CAMERA IN THE CLASSROOM?

 Over 90% of children had more fun in the classroom due to the visualizer/document camera.

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5. HAS THE VISUALISER/DOCUMENT CAMERA REDUCED OR INCREASED YOUR PREPARATION TIME?

 Over 55%of teachers have recognized that the visualizer/document camera decreased lesson preparation time. None of teachers felt that preparation time increased for lessons.

Overall school Report card:-

There are technical and vocational education as well as training and higher education involving universities and undergraduate and postgraduate institutions. The structure of education has four basic types of school: 1. Government schools, including those run by local bodies; 2. Private schools, aided by the government; 3. Private unaided schools; and 4. Unrecognized private schools (the first three being recognized by the government).

Eighty-seven per cent of the schools in India are in the country’s villages.

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Programs

Akanksha runs 4 programs that aid the all- round development of children. These programs prompt the kids to embrace active citizenship, work efficiently in a competitive environment and effectively manage the turmoil of adolescence.

Mission: To transform students into empowered individuals who are able to identify and understand social issues and embrace active citizenship. The Service Learning Program (SLP) aims to inculcate a sense of agency in its students. A year and half program, SLP exposes participants to various social issues and motivates them to create frameworks for change. Students attend weekly session/workshops that cover current affairs and develop leadership skills. The SLP team also supports Akanksha’s centers integrate a spirit of service into the curriculum, and three Akanksha schools are currently piloting service learning programs.Click here to read the latest SLP Newsletter

Sports Program

Sports ProgramThe Sports Program’s primary goal is for children to have fun, create friendships, and build self-confidence through physical activity. In addition, the students are taught the value and importance of teamwork. Classes are run on weekends, and children are introduced to a variety of sports and offered a safe, healthy opportunity for organized physical play. Students who are particularly successful in classes are invited to join one of Akanksha’s teams, which compete in leagues with teams from other community organizations so they can continue to develop their skills

India School Leadership Institute ISLI 

•India School Leadership Institute (ISLI), established in 2013 as a project of the Akanksha Foundation, is one of the first initiatives in India to focus on developing the skills of School Leaders, to build high performing schools that commit to and deliver academic achievement and character development of children in low-income schools. School Leaders are defined as headmasters, principals, head teachers and school owners.

Our key objectives are:

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- To create a pipeline of leaders equipped to lead high performing schools for children ofunderserved communities

- establish the benchmark for school leadership training in India.

Our Vision: Every school in India will be led by an effective school leader who will create quality learning opportunities that prepare children for higher education and responsible citizenship.

Our Mission: To develop school leaders who drive high-performing schools that commit to academic achievement and character development of children from underserved communities

Journey of Akanksha

The Akanksha Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation with a mission to provide high-

quality education to children from low-income communities, enabling them to maximize

their potential and transform their lives. Akanksha provides supplemental education

through its centres and addresses formal education by running schools and initiating school

reform through The School Project.

Anjali Sabnani is School Coach and Director of Education at Akanksha Foundation.

“I never wanted to be a teacher. It just happened to me. When I quit the corporate world, I

began volunteering at an Akanksha after-school centre that worked with slum children,

thinking I would do this for a year and then return to my earlier life. I ended up teaching for

over 10 years.

I had many questions when I began teaching. Could children from the slums speak

impeccable English? Could they think critically? Could they change their lives? I had no

answers and no one around me seemed to have any either.

Today, I can say with assurance that slum children can speak English, and can think critically.

And 10 years from now I will be able to tell you whether they have changed their lives or

not. When I first became a teacher I unprepared for much that I experienced. I met children

with lives who inhabited a world so removed from mine. Like all children they too laughed,

cried, ate and played. But their reality was of living on the roads, of rat bites, of alcoholic

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fathers who beat their wives, of drugs, of no electricity, of fighting for water and often no

food. What was I supposed to do and where was I supposed to start?

I chose to push them to learn. Despite being unsure myself, I made them believe education

would be their way out.

I chose to focus on English because I believed it would give these children the advantage

they would need to get ahead in life. Through newspapers, my students learnt about the

Israel-Palestine crisis, Maoists, Kashmir, and the US subprime crisis. We learnt phonics,

vocabulary, phrases and read books and articles. I pushed them hard and I began to see

results.

Becoming a teacher was the toughest thing I did, and I believe it is one of the most difficult

jobs in the world. In order to be a good teacher, I had to learn two things: not to feel guilty

or conflicted between my world and theirs, and to continue fighting even when the fight

was lost. There were instances when, in spite of all my efforts, my students quit their

education.

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Many times, I felt the task was impossible, the challenges were too great, the children's will

too weak. Then I would think of the price of failure and how it would translate in these

children's lives, and I would push my students and myself some more. There was no time to

make allowances. We increased centre time to five hours. I worked zealously in making

plans, correcting their work, gathering information, and researching for things to do. If the

children didn't read the papers or complete their homework it would mean paying a fine of

Rs 5 and staying back at the centre to write an essay. Holidays meant seven hours at the

centre.

We also learnt outside of class. We did projects and went on field trips. We had fun days at

my home when we watched films like Chicago, Hotel Rwanda, and Life is beautiful, and

munched on popcorn.

At the end of every year, we put on a performance and the children knew that unless it was

excellent we would not invite others to see our show. The children learnt what it was to

work extremely hard at something, to have high expectations and to excel.

When cathedral students came as volunteers to my class I made them students. My

children's self-confidence grew when they scored more in quizzes than them, and were

pushed in other areas where they saw the cathedral students excel. The cathedral students

learnt it was possible for any child to learn and how to be happy with so little. In time, the

two groups of students saw that they weren't much different from each other and became

friends. Cathedral students took part in three of our year-end projects. They also invited my

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students to take part in the Cathedral Model United Nations. My students represented

Luxemburg.

Today, children from the two groups remain friends even though one may study at Xaviers,

Mumbai, and the other at Brown University, US.

When one of my students, Jyoti Mishra, first joined my class she lacked confidence. She

stammered and constantly fidgeted while talking. With time, praise and constant pushing,

Jyoti soon began to open up. She had an aptitude for Math and in her SSC, she scored 145

out of 150. Today, after doing her 12th from Xaviers, she is studying engineering at Pune's

Raisoni College. She wants to go abroad for further studies, and keeps switching between

wanting to be an astronaut to joining the army. She may very well achieve her dreams one

day.

Over the years my students have taught me several things. Two stand out for me. One, their

happiness does not lie in material things. I was always amazed when my students were

genuinely happy living in conditions most would find unbearable.

The second, their spirit remained undefeated. In the years that I taught them, three of my

students watched their mother burn to death, six lost a parent to alcohol and other

illnesses, and I lost one of my students when he was crushed by a train while chasing a kite

near the tracks. As a tribute to Pankaj, my students cleared up a garbage dump and

converted it into a cricket ground. Pankaj loved cricket.

Over time my students grew up. We bonded, and they now know some of my deepest

worries and issues. We became each other's support system.

I want to end with the story of one of students, a girl called Draupadi. She was bright,

articulate and had an aptitude for English. She dreamt of studying and becoming something,

but she didn't get the chance. She was married off at 14 to a boy who had been chosen for

her older sister. Her sister had eloped, and the parents, left shamefaced, had chosen to

restore their lost honour by marrying their younger daughter off instead.

He was 20 years old and uneducated. When I visited Draupadi in her new home, a slum in

Pune, she looked like she was playing dress up in her mother's clothes. She had lost the fight

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in her. She didn't want to leave, live in a hostel alone and face what life would throw her

way.

I didn't push hard enough, thinking her life might work out, and maybe she would be happy.

I was wrong. In the next few years, she had three miscarriages. Today, Draupadi is the

mother of three and has returned to her parents' home. When I think of her and the

millions of such Draupadis, I feel angry at the wasted potential, the lost chances, and the

defeated dreams.

I am driven to work harder so one day no more Draupadis will be sacrificed, no more

Draupadis will be forced to give up on their dreams.

Testimony from one of the volunteer - A school where happy memories are created What would an ideal school be like? How would it be like the school you attended? How would it be different?

School. For each of us this word means something different. In my opinion, school helps us to build the foundation of our future lives because we learn to read, write, and understand the difference between good and evil. School helps us to build confidence, become independent, and learn to be persistent. It also makes us smarter, more curious about knowledge, and determined to find our place in the world. It plays a big role in our lives. Everybody has memories of their school that stay with them their whole lives, whether they are positive or negative.

Looking back at the experiences I gained at my school, I realize that it may not have always been the best, but I wouldn’t want to change anything about it. So when I was given a chance to be a leader of Shindewadi, I dreamt of making it a place where such experiences would be created that would last forever in the memories of the children. Creating happy experiences at school is very important, especially in our kinds of schools, because children do not experience such at their homes.

Thus I began to write on paper my vision of the ideal school. The ideas I had in my mind were many but translating them into reality was going to be the toughest part. Thus began my journey on the 13th of June 2012.

The first few months at school weren’t the easiest - transforming an existing setup is not an easy thing to do. But the support that I received from a set of new, young and enthusiastic teachers was amazing and motivated me to do better and better each day. Not to mention the support that I received from others who had already been associated with this school from its inception. My idea was to create classrooms which were engaging, fun and trying to give hands on experience and as much exposure as possible. Over the year teachers planned many such activities and lessons to make sure we tried to create classrooms like that.

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My experience of being an Akanksha teacher and working in a formal school for many years came in handy and made me very solution oriented. My teaching experience has changed my entire outlook on and attitude toward life. Before being a teacher, I was shy, had low self-esteem and turned away from seemingly impossible challenges. Teaching has altered all of these qualities. A few years ago I would have never imagined myself conducting a meeting with 25 new teachers or planning a Christmas carnival or doing an elocution competition with 380 kids. But all this became a reality this year.

Days flew by and I did not realise when the year was about to end. I had already started to think about the coming year and how I could alter the mistakes I made this year so that I could make this school a place where children created memories they would cherish all their life.

I realise now that though I am far behind from creating my vision of an ideal school, the goal is not an impossible task.

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Dhwani Shah

Assistant School Leader

Shindewadi Mumbai Public School

Testimony - Quiet at the Back

A few weeks ago the school leadership team met for two days to share best practices, highlight successes, and confront struggles and challenges they face in building excellent schools for our students. From this activity grew a discussion around our purpose for educating children and our beliefs about what this means. The chart below is a map of this discussion. 

One of the things that emerged is that we have an immense amount to learn both together and from each other. As an Akanksha team, we have the benefit of being a network of schools, and as we

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grow it is critical that we be our first resource - that we leverage our strengths, ideas, and learnings to improve our schools and help each other.

This blog is meant to do just that. It is a place for school leaders, curricular support staff, coaches and teachers to exchange thoughts, questions, and ideas. As the title suggested, "Quiet at the Back" is a platform for all of us to engage in the kinds of discussions that are often neglected or lost in the million urgent tasks we must do every day. I hope that teachers and staff across our schools will read these posts to gain insights into schools across our network.

Reena Shah

Chief Learning Officer, The Akanksha Foundation

Year landmark achievement by Akanksha

1991 First Akanksha Center Founder, Shaheen Mistri started the first Akanksha center with 15 children at Holy Name School.

1996 Art for Akanksha began so children could express themselves and the world could see their potential.

2000 Akanksha in Pune started operations in Pune in collaboration with Thermax.

2003 First School Intervention. Worked in government schools for the first time, aiming to make a sustainable impact.

2007 The School Project adopted the first municipal school with Thermax Social Initiatives Foundation in Pune.

2008 Incubated Teach for India— the two organisations continue to share close ties.

2013 India School Leadership Institute Incubating ISLI which will train a new generation of transformational school leaders in India

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Achiever from Akanksha

H.Karthikeyani received her Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Nallamuthu Gounder Mahalingam College (affiliated to Bharathiar University, Coimbatore) in 2012, Bachelor of Education in Mathematics from Tamilnadu Teachers Education University, Chennai in 2013. Currently she is pursuing her Master of Science in Mathematics at Nallamuthu Gounder Mahalingam College, Pollachi. She has presented many research papers in Symposiums. Her broad fields of research are Operations Research, Multimedia and Child Psychology.

H. Vignesh Ramamoorthy received his M.Sc (Software Engineering) from Anna University, Chennai in 2010, MCA from Bharathiar University in 2012, Post Graduate Diploma in Mobile Computing from Annamalai University in 2012. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Sree Saraswathi Thyagaraja College, Pollachi, Coimbatore District and also pursuing his part time M.Phil in the same institution. He has presented 10 papers in National Conferences, 7 in International Conferences and has 11 publications in various refereed international journals. His areas of interests are Multimedia, Mobile Computing and Web Development.

P.J. Balakumaran received his M.Phil in Computer Science from Sree Saraswathi Thyagaraja College, Pollachi in 2012, M.Sc Computer Science in Sree Ramu College of Arts and Science, Pollachi in 2011.

SOCIAL WORK TEAM

Social Work Department

The social work department is the critical link between Akanksha, the parents, and the community. Social workers conduct regular home visits to keep track of developments in the children’s lives, maintain good relationships with their families, understand their struggles,  make sure children attend both Akanksha and their formal schools regularly, and follow up in case of any issues.  Through all this they make sure of each child’s well-being and control dropouts from the system.

Akanksha Social workers catalyze social change.

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Social workers catalyze social changeWithin the parent community just as an Akanksha center strives to do so for the children. Parent meetings are conducted through the year covering informational and general awareness. Through these regular meetings the parents are also kept engaged by the sharing of the children’s progress. Topics include:

Garbage management Good parenting Involvement of fathers in children’s lives Celebration of women on women’s day Swine flu awareness Junk food

The Empowerment Program, conducted by the Social Work team is for adolescent children, and aims to help them deal with negative influences to society.

Social work helps children deal with negative influencesSuch as alcoholism, substance abuse; discuss social issues such as gender inequality, early marriage, and issues related to sex and sexuality.

Total number of student’s part of the program: 400

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Another important role of the social work department is to ensure the health of all Akanksha children. The Medical Program covers free checkups and treatments if required for all Akanksha children. Akanksha also supports its children in case of any medical emergencies.

CONCLUSION

In the global world, India has to compete with many countries on various aspects besides many difficulties. Thus, the rural India can overcome the existing problems in schools by installing this project. Hence, this change in the teaching, learning strategy will provide quality education at affordable cost for rural based schools, changes and improves the teaching, learning strategy, improve the slow learners, equip and updates the knowledge of teachers. As a solution to overcome the existing problems in schools, this paper proposes an Interactive Teaching – Learning Tool. The objectives of this NGO was to evolve an ICT tool for teaching – learning, develop an internal mechanism to run the tool, facilitate the schools to receive and operate the tool.

AKANKSHA WINS THE INDIA NGO AWARD

The Akanksha Foundation won the India NGO Awards-2010 as the ‘NGO of the year’ award in the large category. The India NGO Awards is a unique national competition that celebrates and rewards the best non-governmental organizations by showcasing examples of best practice and successful resource mobilization. The Awards focus on professional management, innovation in local resource mobilization, and the effectiveness of the organization’s activities in improving the lives of the people they serve. Initially launched in partnership with the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, the 2009-2011 India NGO Awards program is a joint venture between The Resource Alliance and the Rockefeller Foundation. Over 210 organizations applied for the India NGO Awards 2010. All entries received are put through a stringent, three level selection process and one organization in each budget category per region is finally shortlisted as a Regional Awardee.

The India NGO Awards seek to:• Promote good standards and practice in resource mobilization, accountability, and transparency• Recognize and celebrate excellence in the non-profit sector• Identify and strengthen successful resource mobilization practices• Create examples and inspiration for other non-profits and promote cross regional learning• Promote overall credibility of the non-profit sector for long term sustainability

Thanks

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