Section 1: - Prathampratham.org/file/Gujrat 1doc.doc · Web view2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers for Class III 3-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers for Class IV 4-digit numbers by

Final Revised version, July 2007

Enabling most deprived children to learnLessons from promising practices

Report commissioned by Department of Elementary Education, MHRD, GOI and

International Labour Organisation, New Delhi

KAMESHWARI JANDHYALA & VIMALA RAMACHANDRANEducational Resource Unit

July 2007

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the government and NGO programme leaders to participate in this documentation project. We learnt a great deal from each and every project – thank you!

We thank the Department of Elementary Education, MHRD, GOI and International Labour Organisation, New Delhi for giving us this opportunity. In particular we would like to thank Ms Vrinda Sarup, Mr. Dhir Jhingran, Ms Surina Rajan and Ms Preet Verma for resposing their confidence in Educational Resource Unit.

The case study writers were a wonderful group to work with and we thank each one of them: Amukta Mahapatra, Bharat Patni, Nishi Mehrotra, Deepa Das, Shobhita Rajagopal, Niti Saxena, Binay Pattanayak, Shaktibrata Sen, Shruti Nag, Parismita Singh, Mutum Ashok, Suchitra Vedant, Rashmi Sharma, Naitra Murlykrishnan, K M Sheshagiri, P Prashanti and Padma.

Bhavana Pankaj summarised the case studies and Harsh Sethi ploughed through the synthesis document. Both of them ran their magic pens and made it presentable to the world. Thank You!

Thank you all!

Kameshwari Jandhyala New DelhiVimala Ramachandran 2007

Educational Resource Unit 20072

Table of contents

SECTION 1 4Introduction 4Children at risk: 5This report 7

SECTION 2 8PROMISING PRACTICES 8

1.Planning for Equitable Education: The Experience of Assam 92.Reaching working children: Indus project Virudhnagar 193.Activity Based Learning Programme in Schools of the Corporation of Chennai 284.From QIP to CLIP: The case of Andhra Pradesh 335.School Monitoring Profile, Uttaranchal 436.Learning Guarantee Program, Karnataka 507.Combining Deeni Taleem and Duniyavi Taleem: Madarsa Education in Madhya Pradesh 628.Transforming AP’s Government School Teachers: An MVF intervention 709.Communitization of Elementary Education in Nagaland 7710.The Pratham intervention in Kutch, Gujarat 8411Active Schools – Latur 9112.Intergrated Learning Improvement Programme – West Bengal 10113.Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI): The case of Karnataka 10914.Strengthening Science Education: Agastya International Foundation

11615. Skill based education, Chandigarh 12216.School Complexes of Goa 13117.Upscaling an Innovation: the Rishi Valley experience 142

SECTION 3 154EMERGING LESSONS FROM 17 CASE STUDIES 154Ensuring meaningful access for children at risk: 155Confronting reality: Going beyond numbers 156Planning for equity 157Enabling empowered action 159Facilitating two way communications 161Energising the school 162Monitoring and assessment 166Local specific innovation going to scale 167Conclusion: when do promising innovations become best practices?168


Section 1

Introduction

‘The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.’ (Article 45, Directive Principles of State Policy, The Constitution of India, 1950)The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine. (86 th Amendment, article 21 A, The Constitution of India, December 2002)

The number of primary schools in the country has increased from around 1.76 lakhs (1950-51) to 7.67 lakhs (2004-05). and enrolment in the primary cycle has gone from 19.2 million in 1950 to 131.69 million in 2003-04. At the upper primary stage, the increase in enrolment is by a factor of 13 for all children and 32 for girls. The gross enrolment ratio at the primary stages often exceeds 100 per cent (this phenomenon is fairly common in India because children below and above the 6-14 age group enrol in primary classes), though the net enrolment ratio is about 20 per cent lower (Selected Educational Statistics 1999-2000 and 2004, GOI).

At one level the problem of access seems to have has been significantly addressed with close to 90 per cent children in the 6-11 age group reportedly enrolled in primary schools (formal, EGS/alternative schools and private schools).

Drop out rates have also indicated an encouraging. The Select Education Statistics for 2004-05 indicate that gross drop out rates delclined frim 39.03% in 2001-02 to 28.49% in 2004-05. In the case of girlsthis has been significan at around 15 % points from 39.88% to 24.82% during this same period.1 Despite these encouraging trends, the drop out issue needs to be carefully tracked as regularity continues to be a problem. For example, the recent ASER 20052 report cites that 51% of enrolled children were not in school on the day of the survey, prompting educationists to question the relevance of enrolment data. This data is particularly troubling because an overwhelming proportion of children from disadvantaged groups – especially those who are at risk of dropping out – attend government schools.

1 Report of the XIth Plan Working Group , Chapter on Elementary Education (SSA & Girls Education)2 Pratham Educational Initiative: Annual Status of Education report, January 2006, New Delhi


Children at risk:Who are the children who are most at risk of not enrolling or dropping out of school?

a. Children from very poor households;b. Children in migrant families;c. Children engaged in paid and unpaid work;d. Older girls who take on household responsibilities;e. Children in difficult circumstances – like children of sex workers, migrant labour and most recently those affected by HIV and AIDS;f. Children with special needs;

Children drop out of school for many reasons – quality, relevance and dysfunctionality being big issues. Yet, there is a significant group of children who are irregular or drop out due to the burden of work. In a recent discussion with officials of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh it emerged that the problem is perhaps most acute in the 10+ age group and among communities that are forced to migrate for work. Describing the enormity of the problem a senior officer explained that close to 40,000 children from AP migrate with their parents for the construction work in urban areas. Recent evidence from the tsunami affected districts of Tamil Nadu reveals that boys in the 10+ age group are pulled out of school to go fishing with their fathers3. Similarly, the burgeoning infrastructure sector across the country employs migrant workers from many states. While the younger children may be just hanging around, officials admit that the older children are often put to work. Equally significant is the problem of seasonal employment of children or even of short-term bondage – especially of boys4.

Another important insight that emerged during the course of doing the 17 case studies and also from discussions with government officials at the state and district levels is that working children who participate in bridge courses / residential programmes are enrolled in formal schools. However, ground level experience in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka reveal that a majority of such children drop out within 3 to 6 months of being “mainstreamed”. The reasons cited were as follows:

Inability to follow lessons in class – which is linked to quality of education and the fact that teachers are not able to give individual attention to children;

The attitude and behaviour of children who have always been in school towards former child workers was cited as important reasons for dropping out. Interviews with children reveal that bullying and verbal abuse is fairly common.

Lack of a support group within the formal school to address the specific needs / concerns of erstwhile child workers.

Drought, floods or any other disaster in the community, illness or indebtedness in the family and any other crisis ends up pulling the children out of school all over again. This is particularly so for older children (11+ age group) and the situation for boys and girls is quite different. A recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (www.cag.gov.in, Report No 15, 2006) has noted that “the average attendance in primary school among boys is 74.2 and girls is 75.3… the percentage of out of school

3 Aruna Rathnam of UNICEF, Chennai, May 20064 Vimala Ramachandran et al, Snakes and Ladders: Factors Influencing Successful Primary School Completion for Children in Poverty Contexts, South Asia Human Development Series, Report No 6, World Bank, New Delhi, 2003


http://www.cag.gov.in/

children on account of their having dropped out was higher (54.9%) as compared to those who never attended school (45.1%). The main reasons for not liking to go to schools were the teacher beating up students, activities in the school being very boring and not being able to cope with the happenings in school” (Page 18, CAG Report No 15, 2006)

While there is no reliable estimate on the percentage or the number of children who are working, the moot point is that a combination of a dysfunctional school system, poor learning outcomes and the economic situation of parents push children out of school and into work. They are the ones who are most at risk. Improving the quality of education is therefore quite central in any effort to guarantee education to children who are most at risk.

The situation on the ground is complex. Addressing one or two issues with the exclusion of others does not lead to improvement. Initiatives that address the entire schooling experience as a continuum could lead to positive change. Talking to children in three states in an earlier study done by Educational Resource Unit (2004) revealed that the ability of children to successfully complete primary education depends on multiple factors – as illustrated in the table below:

Table 2: Factors influencing successful primary school completionMild +, Strong ++, Very Strong +++ and Extremely Strong ++++

Boys GirlsPositive Negative Positive Negative

Primary SchoolBright and welcoming school +++ +++Building and compound wall ++ ++Teacher pupil ratio between 1:20 and 1:40 +++ +++Teacher-pupil ration very high, above 1:40 and in many areas 1:65. +++ +++

Teacher regular +++ +++Teachers irregular / take turns to come ++ +++Actual teaching time very low – less than 45 minutes a day and less than 20 minutes per period.

++++ ++++

Actual teaching time satisfactory – more than 1 hour 20 minutes a day and at least 35 minutes per period.

++++ ++++

Female teacher who is regular ++ ++++Distribution of textbooks +++ +++Village Education Committee active ++ ++Active SDMC / PTA / School Education Committees ++++ ++++

Mid-day meal – hot food ++++ ++++Mid-day meal – dry rations + +Punishment – mild + +Punishment – harsh ++++ ++++Teacher attitude towards poor dismissive ++ ++Teacher exhibits prejudices (caste / gender) +++ ++++Joyful learning methods used ++ ++Children learning to read and write ++++ ++++Learning outcomes poor – children in class 4 and 5 not able to read or write. +++ +++

Learning songs, rhymes and poems +++ +++


No-detention policy + +Extra-curricular activities +++ +++Enrolment campaigns ++ +++Back-to school campaigns ++ +++

Boys GirlsPositive Negative Positive Negative

Source: Vimala Ramachandran et al, Snakes and Ladders: Factors Influencing Successful Primary School Completion for Children in Poverty Contexts, South Asia Human Development Series, Report No 6, World Bank, New Delhi, 2003

This reportRecognising that the poorest go to government schools and to ensure that the most deprived get a chance to learn and to complete elementary education the government and NGOs have initiated a range of programmes and projects. India has witnessed a number of promising initiatives from which administrators and practitioners can draw important lessons. It is in this backdrop that the Government of India (Department of Education) and the International Labour Organisation decided to study programmes and projects that have successfully addressed issues of quality in government schools – especially for children at risk of dropping out.

We identified 17 promising practices dealing with different dimensions of school improvement for in-depth study out a of larger set of about 48 programmes identified through a scanning of secondary published and unpublished material (see Annexure 2 This report presents 17 case studies and synthesizes the lessons from them.

Though the above programmes (chosen in consultation with GOIt and ILO) exhibit some characteristics that have a potential for replication in the mainstream, we refrain from calling them “best practices” because many of them are relatively new and are yet to be embedded into the system. Individually, however, almost all of them address a few aspects of the schooling experience or the education system.


Section 2PROMISING PRACTICES


Case Study I

1. Planning for Equitable Education: The Experience of AssamD R . D E E P A D A S 5

The Turning PointDESPITE the expansion of the delivery system of elementary education (post DPEP) that included a much larger number of children than ever before, there were some residual issues to contend with when the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was poised for launch in Assam. Unserved habitations, out-of-school children - particularly at the upper primary level, high dropout and repetition rates, irregular attendance, skewed Pupil Teacher Ratio in pockets; many single-teacher schools and inadequate school infrastructure were some of them. Besides, a fully functional system was also a pressing need in the context of universalisation of elementary education (UEE).

The thrust in the District Primary Education Program (DPEP) was largely on universalizing enrolment. The DPEP experience, however, brought up some vital issues before the SSA in Assam:

Proportion of out-of-school children in some DPEP districts was fairly high

Persistent gaps were found in teacher adequacy as a result of the state government’s inability to rationalize and create new positions (the aggregated figure was well within the norms). The position was worse in some interior and remote areas

The view that the needs of each school were different and merited a school-based approach did not receive due consideration. As a result, the school as a unit for planning remained on paper even though it was an essential precondition of UEE

DISE data results masked the real problem of unreliable and inflated school enrolment that escaped notice and remained unaccounted for. The relevance of household data, thus, emerged as the basis for informed planning

Problems of ‘hard core’ children, including working and deprived urban children, those who migrated with parents and disabled children etc. were not fully addressed despite alternative schooling interventions

Many areas that do not have formal government schools, including tea gardens (which have statutory tea garden management-run schools), and also remote forest areas remained without schooling facilities.

There was need to focus on specific aspects of UEE based on habitation-centric analysis

5 With inputs from D Jhingran, Director, Department of Elementary Education & Literacy, MHRD, GOI, and assistance from Atiqur Rahman Barbhuiya, Independent Consultant and Kamal Gogoi, Assistant Inspector of Schools, Jorhat


A plan needed to be formulated for universal (physical) access in a systematic manner

A rigorous and efficient approach to work and a transparent and accountable system were a must to provide equitable elementary education. Broadly, the key elements of this approach were:

Creating clear situational understanding (of gaps, special/unique circumstances, needs) to be able to plan and provide as per identified needs. This was achieved through rigorous analysis of available data/information, updating of the same and creation of new databases through participatory surveys

Identifying special areas and special groups of children in the state

Formulating a broad framework for operations

Rationalizing allocation of resources – the AWP & Bs being the major vehicle for this

Operationalizing the AWP & B – affirmative action, facilitative guidelines

Working through partnerships with NGOs, tea garden management, Bharat Scouts and Guides, religious leaders

Involving the district administration

Creating special structural arrangements

Ensuring matching policy shift

Setting ground rules for operations – rights-based, transparent and accountable

1. Creating the Requisite Situational Understanding

Sharing and analysis of the DPEP experience enabled deeper insights into issues that had to be prioritized and addressed with urgency. Financial allocations, human resource and systemic support in keeping with the disparate needs of the state were recognized as crucial for UEE to be effective. The deliberations also facilitated the concept of a framework of operations. It became clear that ensuring empathy and understanding of the situation among officials at all levels of delivery was critical. It was also important to take the community and its representative bodies into confidence to establish the necessary two-way interaction for better delivery by the system.

2. Identification of Special Areas and Special Groups of Children in the State

Provisioning of elementary education had to be planned for diverse contexts to ensure the inclusion of all children. Most of the special/difficult situations had not received due attention because the planning process was not competent to do so. Therefore, the deprived continued to stay deprived.

The most disadvantaged, in terms of availability and quality of schooling facilities, was a high proportion of out-of-school children in the tea gardens, and border, riverine (char) and hilly areas. There are backward pockets even in the educationally-advanced districts, mainly on account of tea gardens. Non tea-growing areas were found to be much better of compared to the tea-growing areas in terms of the number of out-of-school children and merited special attention.


Leading the campaign for UEE the Assam SSA Mission statement focused on a rights approach, equity, accountability, transparency and a participative work

With this as the backdrop, criteria-based identification was done, and four types of special and educationally-backward areas were listed:

Type A: All tea gardens

Type B : Educationally-disadvantaged areas (age-specific enrolment rate <60, 65, 70)

Type C : Remote, inaccessible areas

(i) All villages/areas (non-revenue village)/CRCs which are, at least, 20 km from the block headquarters and any part of the distance has to be traversed by public transport + boat + bicycle/on foot.

(ii) All villages/areas (non revenue village)/CRCs which are at least 20 km from the block headquarter with public transport facility (bus/shared auto) and a distance of at least 10 km with no transport facility (20 km by public transport + 10 km by bicycle/on foot).

Type D: Other categories: Insurgency/ethnic conflict prone areas, urban slums and pockets of high incidence of child labour.

Lists of these areas were verified, notified, corrected and published. Special arrangements were made for stepping up implementation, technical support, monitoring and supervision in these areas.

3. Formulating a Broad Framework for Operations

The government recognized its role in augmenting the delivery systems of elementary education. It agreed that providing schooling facilities in the first place was the basic minimum condition for learning and providing quality education. It evolved a framework for operations with a strong rights and people-centric perspective. It nurtured this approach to make education easily accessible and more accountable and the stage was set for fulfilling the constitutional objective of free and compulsory education to all 6-14 year old children. This implied:

Adequate schooling facilities are available with ease of access

All children are brought within the fold of elementary education

Schools function regularly

Learning takes place in schools

Children complete the education cycle in the ‘ideal’ time and cut down on wastage

4. Rationalized Allocation of Resources through Planning

The Annual Work Plans and Budgets (AWP & B) were the obvious vehicle for rationalizing resource allocation that enshrined the district-specific targets and were the envisaged means of getting to them.

Unlike in the DPEP plans where Assam followed the conservative line of equal allocation of resources and effort that fell short of providing adequately for the “more deserving” areas, equitability was the watchword in the planning process for UEE under SSA. Planning in SSA


sought to wipe out the disparities in supply by providing strong norm and need-based programs depending on whether a school needed a building, more teachers or more materials etc so that schools could provide basic learning conditions. Alongside, ‘compensation packages’, targeted at specific areas/schools and children, were designed to mitigate the educational disadvantages faced by underprivileged children. The government became conscious of the fact that it was not enough to provide inputs for ensuring quality improvement in schools. It was equally important to be able to ensure outcomes which meant, for example, that enrolment figures must translate into regular attendance of children, their transition from one grade to the next and their completion of primary and upper primary stages.

The implementation plan in 2002-03 was based on the following data:

(i) Creation of household database and community engagement in education

A massive survey-cum-community mobilization campaign – Alokar Jatra – was launched to create, for the first time, a database of ‘school going’ and ‘not school going’ children to facilitate the planning process under SSA. Alokar Jatra also:

created awareness about the prevalent primary education scenario by sharing the data at village and Gaon Panchayat (GP) levels with the village community

Formed Village Education Committees (VECs), Tea Garden Education Committees (TECs), School Managing Committees (SMCs) and Gaon Panchayat Education Committees (GPECs) with the support of the community.

(ii) Infrastructure survey

Infrastructural requirements of every school were assessed through a Technical Infrastructure Survey covering each of the 40,000 schools (primary and upper primary) between April and May 2002. The survey ascertained the actual status of the school building (together with photographs) so that norm-based prioritization could be done for the civil works program under SSA. The survey was able to list the schools into 13 categories according to which schools without a building would get top priority followed by those that required renovation, and then, schools that needed repairs, additional classrooms etc.

Besides ensuring prioritization on the basis of technical assessment that highlighted the status of school infrastructure in the state it also enabled a comparison of the condition of schools before and after completion of the work.

Thus, the somewhat open-ended, experimental approach of the DPEP gave way to a more systematic, convergent planning for achieving UEE that made it possible to make preferential allocation of resources to specific villages, schools and pockets. Examples of evidence based allocations are seen in the demands for EGS and bridge course centres that were derived from VERS, allocation of para teachers on the basis of children’s attendance, placement of remedial support teacher based on the number of low performing children, etc.


5. Operationalizing the AWP & B

Instructions regarding implementation of the Annual Work Plan 2003-04 were issued to the districts6. These instructions pertained to financial norms and practices and also provided programmatic guidance.

Sankalpa Jatra - a mass orientation and training program – was organized in all the districts to orient the grassroots committees on their roles and responsibilities in the educational arena. They were made aware about education as a fundamental right, their role in monitoring, fund distribution, sanitation, and were also informed about the delegation of powers to the PRIs. As a part of the five-day schedule, the trainees went to schools and discussed the problems faced by the schools and the community. The issues that emerged in these discussions became the basis of the ‘School Development Plan’ that was formulated by VECs and TGECs (Tea Garden Education Committees). Over six lakh people, including members of VECs, SMCs, TGECs and GPECs, were trained. Post-training, they made house-to-house visits that led to significant mobilization.

One of the major initiatives undertaken towards UEE was Shishur Uttaran. The Shishur Uttaran program launched in 2003 was declared the ‘Year of Universal Enrolment for Children in the 5-6 years age group’. As an integrated program initiated in all the districts, it had ‘Drive for Universal Enrolment’, ‘Remedial Teaching’ and ‘Bridge Courses’ as components that are of direct relevance to the achievement of UEE. At the end of the process, 90 per cent children were found to be enrolled.

These programs were conducted in 237 urban areas through 14 NGOs in 11 districts. They covered 8,527 children of 5-6 years of whom 6,961 were enrolled. As many as 3,336 children in the 8-10 years age group and 3,378 in the 11-14 years age group were identified as ‘hard-to-reach’ children for whom separate interventions were designed. Affirmative action for disadvantaged areas/groups (the latter included children with disabilities and urban deprived children) was pursued through special packages that included the following:

Flexible norms for setting up of bridge courses/community schools; responsibility for ensuring complete coverage

Engagement of local community resource person or motivators

Specific schemes for assistance to NGOs willing to work in such areas for mobilization and school improvement

Earmarking Innovation Funds for these areas

To facilitate intensive monitoring and supervision through regular and mandatory visits of program and education department personnel and members of

6 Some Expenditure Related Instructions All releases to VEC, SMC, CRC, BRC will be through Bank transfers. For civil works funds will necessarily have to

be released through Bank transfer. District will maintain a Register of GPEC, VEC, TGEC and SMC Bank Account Numbers. If bearer cheque is issued in certain emergent cases, the payee will first deposit the cheque in the Bank and encash it,

so that the transaction is reflected in the Pass Book No grant will be provided to any school which has not filled-up DISE format. The schools which have not filled-up

DISE format but received the grant already will have to fill-up the DISE for 2002. FAO & programmer MIS will be responsible for compliance….. In case any school for which grant has already been released is found to be a venture school, the amount has to be recovered. The responsibility will have to be fixed for the violation of rules.


the Block and District Academic Core Group, TA/DA norms for visits to special areas revised

Any additional funds were preferentially allocated to these areas

Investment in training of youth as change agents in tea garden and Muslim- dominated areas

The Reading Guarantee/Learning Assurance Program was more intensively implemented in these areas

Special programs for helping transition to the second language (used as MOI)

Innovative/holistic strategies for specific areas like tea gardens, remote forest habitations and riverine, minority-dominated areas

Flexibility in school holidays and schedule, additional personnel for school visits

Development of local materials for transaction through documentation by local people.

The underpinnings of quality education were that a school system must ensure that all children learn and all children complete the elementary cycle of education in the stipulated seven years. These are the two parameters on which the performance of the school can be assessed. Teachers’ training, appropriate curriculum and textbooks and regular academic support are key to improving quality in schools.

For the first time in 2003, the dimensions of the rights approach and accountability of the school system for learning of all children were introduced in the training curriculum for teachers. Besides, these programs focused on teaching methods, orientation to the new curriculum and textbooks and multi-grade teaching. The focus at the upper primary level was on science, mathematics and English. New textbooks based on a child-centred and activity-based pedagogy (in contrast to rote memorization) were introduced for classes 1-4. Workbooks that provided greater scope for children to work on their own and practice were introduced for grades 1 and 2. Academic support and the supervision system were revamped to ensure regular visits of more resource persons to every school. These people were also getting involved in target setting and planning for improvement of each school.

Pupil evaluation was done on a quarterly basis and made more systematic. The evaluation test items focused on the skills, concepts and their appreciation rather than mere memory recall questions that traditionally formed the basis of evaluation.

6. Working through Partnerships

Implementation of many of the targeted and nuanced interventions was well outside the means of a government system. It, therefore, became mandatory to create facilitative partnerships that could proxy for the government in specific areas and situations to reach specific groups of people.

Partnerships that evolved in the process included:

NGOs

Tea Garden Management, Assam Tea Employees’ Welfare Board, Youth

Forest Department

Bharat Scouts and Guides


Religious Leaders

The basis of these partnerships varied. For example, NGOs collaborated with the local VEC/CEC to ensure program implementation in remote or educationally backward areas and tea gardens with greater intensity and focus. They also engaged with special categories of children (disabled, urban deprived and working).

In the case of tea garden areas, the SSA Mission agreed to bear the costs of establishing EGS centres, providing school infrastructure and para teachers, enrolment drives, midday meals, textbooks, etc. The tea garden managements, on the other hand picked up the non-financial responsibilities of ensuring that the Tea Garden Education Committee was active and functional, providing space for conducting bridge courses/Education Guarantee Scheme (EGS) Centres or other alternative schooling initiatives, ascertaining that learners of the bridge courses were enrolled in the schools run by the garden management and teachers were able to participate in training programs etc.

The education of minority children, especially girls, was a matter of concern in Assam. A multi-pronged approach was, therefore, adopted in the educationally disadvantaged Muslim pockets, primarily in the riverine areas (char). Support of religious leaders and local influential leaders was mobilized. Institutions of religious instruction, such madarsas, were offered assistance in case they decided to introduce subjects like mathematics, English, local languages, science, computers etc.

7. Involving District Administration

The Deputy Commissioner (DC) and other sectoral district level officers were made part of the planning and implementation committees at the district level. The SSA Mission made special budgetary provisions to facilitate their involvement in monitoring and supervision processes to ensure effective school functioning. For this purpose, each DC submitted a proposal that was reviewed and approved at the state office. Separate expenditure guidelines were provided to the DCs for formulating their plans and implementing them. The communication from the state office expressed special interest in the district officials visiting schools located in remote and disadvantaged areas.

8. Creating Special Structural Arrangements

A variety of support groups were formed at different administrative levels from the State to the Block levels to meet the needs of additional human resource. These academic support groups were responsible for academic issues that worked with the formal schooling system as much as they did with the bridge courses and alternative schooling system. For administrative issues, District Working Groups (DWG) was constituted at the district level with the Deputy Commissioner as the chairperson, and District Mission Coordinator, Inspector of Schools, President ZP, Project Director DRDA, Deputy Inspector Schools (HQ) as members. The DWG is the core implementation body that makes suggestions to the Mission Director pertaining to change of guidelines etc. It was also authorized to take decisions about other issues related to program implementation.

Block Vigilance Committees were constituted with the President of the Anchalik Panchayat as the Chairperson. The committee monitored implementation of the AWPB


and facilitated in generating a block level plans related to schooling facilities. For the effective functioning of the BVCs they were provided Rs 9000/- per year for a period of nine months.With the creation of different bodies schools began to be visited more frequently and reports of their functioning and the difficulties they face were more easily and regularly available. Involvement of people from different backgrounds also helped in making the system transparent and accountable.

9. Ensuring a Matching Policy Shift

Several initiatives have helped to streamline the enrolment procedure in schools to make education easily accessible to people. Broadly, some of these are:

(a) Schools cannot refuse admission to children of 5-6 years age in class I on grounds of shortage of space or teachers. (b) Head teachers are not to insist on production of birth certificate by parents/guardian at the time of admission of children. A written statement by the parent/guardian of the children stating the age of the child would be considered valid for admission.(c) Schooling hours have been increased to five and a half hours a day and it is mandatory for schools to function for 1000 hours in an academic session. (d) Infrequent visits by education officials to the remote riverine and forest areas were a major problem. This has been overcome by making new norms that took into account the cost of travel, locally available facilities, the time taken in travelling as well as the need for spending a night in such an area – and the process of TA/DA reimbursements has been made easier. (e) Planning, execution, monitoring or selection – all these processes and management of finances etc have been decentralized which makes education delivery far more competent and speedy. The community, for example, has been involved in selecting the location for running bridge courses. SSA functionaries organize to orient GP presidents, Anchalik Parishad presidents and ZP members to the concept of bridge courses and their role in implementing the strategy etc.

Village action plans are formulated and responsibilities fixed at public meetings. Information about out-of-school children is collected from the VER for every village and signatures of parents are collected as a token of their consent to send their children to the bridge course. Such steps have succeeded in involving people in a big way to make them aware of all the developments taking place with regard to elementary education.

10. Ground Rules for Operations – Rights based, Equitable, Transparent, Accountable

(a) Rights-based Approach

Despite the considerable challenge of sensitizing the education system and other stakeholders to the fact that every child between 6-14 years has the right to quality education, efforts to push the rights perspective did result in a supportive environment in the state. The right to learn was a direct corollary of the right to education. This emphasis on learning by all children shifted focus on school-based development making school the primary unit of work. The realization grew that infusing quality into schools needed appropriate teaching methods, remedial teaching for low performers and sharing of curricular goals and learning outcomes of children with their parents. That saw the beginning of the Learning Assurance Program (LAP) and the more


specific time-bound Reading Guarantee Program. LAP is an outcome-based initiative that rests on the tenets that:

The entire focus has to be on school-based development Each school must be aware of the results expected from it Each VEC/SMC must appreciate the expected results Performance of each school has to be measured and the results must be made public Demands from parents, community, and administration must be converted into plans that can be implemented.

(b) EquityAs a policy, ‘equity’ has been the overarching principle of implementation under the SSA. It has enabled rationalizing resources, both human and financial, with an emphasis on the deprived and backward schools and sections of children. This is being attempted through identification and notification of special focus areas, strategizing for universal access and targeting out-of-school children, mobilization through the system as well as NGOs, and special quality initiatives.

(c) Transparency

The effort to keep people informed of all the developments has paid off. They are eager to voice their concerns about anomalies as a matter of right and with the hope of a fair hearing. They are able to fearlessly express their views about what should happen at the local level as they are now equipped with facts about their own areas.

To make this into a robust initiative, the SSA Mission has made it a point to disseminate all decisions, guidelines and relevant publications right down to the grassroots. As a result, people are far more aware about the present education scenario, of the efforts being made to include every child in the education net, the role of people in making UEE a success and financial provisions for different activities. Such transparency has enthused people to actively participate in educational processes and gone a long way in reinstating their faith in state-provided education in Assam.

(d) Accountability

Internal accountability for performance based on identified measurable outcomes was a weak link and external accountability to parents, community and civil society almost did not exist. Disaggregated information was not in the public domain to enable others/stakeholders to ask questions.

The Asom Sarba Siksha Abhijan Mission (ASSAM) has decided to undertake Performance Grading of Schools as a useful tool for measuring quality of education delivery at the school level. The Mission felt that unless the quality of education delivery is measured on agreed parameters and in quantifiable terms, quality issues of education will always remain subjective. It also believed that grading is an effective way of factoring in the accountability of teachers and field-level education functionaries. The performance gradation of schools based on student attendance, completion and achievement levels is the essence of LAP.


The Shiksha Nyaya Manch was introduced in collaboration with the Law Research Institute of the High Court of Guwahati as an innovative way for stakeholders to raise their voice in matters related to the delivery of elementary education. Feedback, redressal and transparency of operational norms are the dominant strands of this effort at institutionalising accountability. The programme aims at improving school functioning by addressing the issues of non-attendance of teachers, quick disposal of the complaints of SMCs and VECs. One of the most important features of the scheme is holding of Lok Adalat type of meeting at the sub-district level – at least 2 times a year.


2. Reaching working childrenINDUS Child Labour Project, Virudhunagar,Tamilnadu

Naitra Muralykrishnan

IntroductionBuilding on the experience of the National Child Labour Projects (NCLP’s) initiated by the Ministry of Labour during the Eight and Ninth Five Year Plans in areas with a high concentration of child labour, the ILO in May 2004 initiated the INDUS Child Labour Project to contribute to the prevention and elimination of child labour in Virudhunagar district, Tamil Nadu. The overall goal of the project is to withdraw children working in the hazardous sectors in Virudhunagar district and integrate them into formal education. The approach adopted is to provide transitional and pre-vocational education to the identified children, and provide social support to prevent relapse. The target groups include the children in the age group of 9-13 years working n hazardous sectors in the district and their families.

INDUS Child Labour Project:

The Approach:

The INDUS project envisaged a multifold intervention programme focusing not only on the child, but also on the family and the society at large. Thus the following approach was adopted.

1. Children working in hazardous sectors identified and withdrawn.2. Provision of transitional education to children in the age group of 9-13 years3. Vocational training of adolescent workers in the age group of 14-17 years.4. Income generating alternatives for families of child labour.5. Strengthening public education in the district6. Monitoring and tracking the beneficiaries over the project period and monitoring the changing child labour situation.7. Social mobilization and raising awareness on child labour.8. Capacity building and training government agencies and civil society partners on child labour.


Case Study II

Strategy for intervention:

The Implementation framework:

The most vulnerable children in the age group of 9-13 years of age working in hazardous occupations were identified through a district survey, who were then enrolled in the transitional education centers (TECs). Younger children (below 9 years) were directly mainstreamed into regular schools. Children who could not be enrolled into the TECs were accommodated into ongoing alternate/transitional education initiatives implemented by the Department of Education. The TECs impart primary education upto class V. ‘Lead schools’ which are regular formal schools located within close proximity to the TECs were identified and the children were then mainstreamed


Enroll children in Transitional Education Centres (TEC)

Provide social support to the child, family and society

Identify and mainstream children into ‘lead’ schools (regular schools)

Books, stationary, games etc given to children.

Nutritive MDM for children

Primary health care for children

Monthly stipend ofRs 100 for each child

Strengthen public awareness on child labour

Income generation alternative for families

TEC also acts as resource centre

Identification and withdrawal of children in the age group of 9-13 years from hazardous work

Monitor and track the progress of each child

20

into the formal education system. A bridge course is conducted for children before they are mainstreamed to smoothly integrate them into regular schools. The TECs act as resource centers in the evening and are equipped with reading and play material and children also get extra coaching/tuition from their tutors. The resource centers also help by reducing the risk of children getting lured into working in the industry after study hours at the TECs.

Realizing that the families of children experience a sudden economic deprivation when children are withdrawn from work, the INDUS project initiated income generation alternatives for the families of children to prevent drop out and a possible relapse into child labour. Apart from this, a monthly stipend of Rupees 100 is paid into a joint bank account opened in the name of the child and parent. This is provided on the basis of the child having a minimum of 80% attendance in the TEC and would be paid to the parents only at the time of mainstreaming. The fund is provided with the view that it will cover the additional expenses that the child would require at the time of mainstreaming into regular schools.

Facilitators of the project:The project is implemented through the district level NCLP society. The District Collector is the chair person and the NCLP Project Director is the member secretary of the society. The other members of the society include officials from the Department of Education, Rural and Urban Development, Health, Women and Child Development, Social Welfare, Information, Municipal Corporation and representatives from the executing agencies. The NCLP society also partners with NGOs and Trade Unions in the running of the TECs. Currently of the total of 54 TECs 30 are run by the NCLP society, 22 by NGOs and 2 by Trade unions.

Monitoring and Evaluation:The NCLP society reviews the progress of the project every quarter. The executing agencies also submit their quarterly progress reports for review to the ILO-IPEC. A Mid term review workshop is conducted with representatives of key stakeholders and the ILO-IPEC coordinates and reviews the progress. The executing agencies are also required to participate and provide official data on beneficiaries to the Child Labour Monitoring System (CLMS) which monitors the child labour scenario in the district. Finally, the executing agencies undertake mid term and final self evaluations and report to the ILO-IPEC.


Table 3: Timeline of the INDUS project

2004-2005Month Programme/activity DetailsMay INDUS Project initiated

June Identified beneficiaries through district mode survey.

1609 children were enrolled into the TECs.

2005-2006

March Bridge course carried out 2 day workshop for the children to be mainstreamed was conducted.

Training for teaching volunteers 1 week training on joyful teaching

May ‘Vasanthathai Noki’ conducted To showcase the talent of children who are to be mainstreamed.

Medical check up for children

June

Children mainstreamed into formal schools 40 ‘lead’ schools identified and 1645 children mainstreamed.

Block level meeting on child labour‘Kala jatha’ conducted It was carried over one month

Factories in 8 blocks raided for child labour 43 children identified as child labourers and enrolled into TECs.

Children from the TECs taken on educational tour

Visited Pullarkal Dam in Madurai

September Teaching volunteers trained on running Resource center

October Diwali celebrated at block levelNovember Sports day for children in TECs conducted

December

Teaching volunteers trained in conducting Nila Palli

Teaching volunteers trained on art and craft. 3 day residential training on theatre, mask making, greeting cars preparation.

2006-2007

February Participated in district level exhibition for promoting rural youth

INDUS Project stall was managed for a whole month in 8 blocks and it won the first prize in Sivakasi block.

March Teaching volunteers trained on General Knowledge

April World book day celebrated with children

2 day Training for SHG members 40 SHG members trained on leadership, health, sanitation and family planning.

May Inter TEC visit conducted Children and teaching volunteers visited each others TECs as an exposure to children.

June

Medical check up Conducted for children in TECs who were withdrawn from hazardous working background.

Mainstreaming of children into formal education 654 children from TECs were mainstreamed. ‘Job mela’ conducted

Anti child labour day celebratedCycle rallies, human chain, awareness program for SHG members conducted to strengthen public awareness.

SeptemberTeaching volunteers trained on TLM use

World literacy day celebrated 150 children from TECs in Sivakasi were given 1 day computer training

November Signature campaign, sticker campaign and rallies conducted

1 lakh signatures from people were collected in support of anti child labour. Employers and factory owners participated in sticker campaign.

Stakeholders speak:

The views of various stakeholders in the project- the project staff, administrative officials, teaching volunteers, vocational instructors, children, their parents, VEC members, and teachers of regular schools on the impact of the project were collected through a series of discussions. There was unanimous agreement that the INDUS project had indeed changed the lives of several children who were earlier child labourers. To several parents, the TECs and


related interventions such as the income generation alternatives, formation of SHGs and the stipend for children were turning points in their own lives and the lives of their children. The District Collector said “A change in parental attitude is happening because of the INDUS project.” There were many success stories linked to the project. Several students who were mainstreamed continued to do well academically and some were pursuing their higher studies in colleges in the district and outside. A few students presently studying in the TECs had been awarded the ‘Young Scientist Award’ by the National Science and Technology Department (GOI) for their project on ‘Bio Diversity’ and were proudly on their way to meet the President of India in December 2006.

There was better public awareness regarding child labour and the hazardous nature of labour in match and firework factories. Consequently the incidence of child labour had ‘visibly’ reduced. Fewer children were seen working in tea shops, hotels and stationeries. Moreover, the INDUS project along with the support from the Labour department and the Supervisor of Industries conducted raids in these factories and shops. This resulted in children being withdrawn from work and a penalty levied on the factory/shop owner for practicing child labour. The project staff said that the public raids had also increased the accountability of the project to the public and society at large and resulted in better communication with people and a greater interest shown by people in the activities of the project.

Best practices in the field:

a) The TECs:The TEC teachers reported that children had a tendency to be absent on Mondays, so they used to go personally to their homes and literally ‘bring’ them to the TEC. This is the most ‘fragile phase’ for the child as their impulse was to escape the TEC and get back to the factory. The Teachers also said that a very important feature of the TECs which can also be dubbed as the reason for the success of the TECs was their teaching practice. They said that they were constantly finding ‘innovative and attractive’ methods of teaching the lessons. The children were taught lessons upto class V adopting a curriculum very similar to the one followed in regular schools. Using songs, stories and group activities, the teachers converted the teaching process into a delightful learning process. In addition the constant attention given the children coupled with frequent home visits and meetings with the parents was also responsible for children’s’ successful retention in the TEC.

Box I


TEC as a Resource Center The resource centers played a very big part in the retention of children in the TEC. The TECs, doubling as resource centers in the evening maximized leisure and play for the children. Here, they found ample time to play, read books, learn new art and craft techniques and also complete their homework. It was also a viable option for working parents who were formally worried about their child’s whereabouts while they were at work.

Speaking with children, it was clear that the years in the TEC had become memorable days for them. They said “our teachers at the TEC were very good to us. They used to stop whenever they spotted us on the road and enquired after us. Even to this day, they continue to do so and keep motivating us to stay in our new school.” Several of the children are reportedly doing very well academically in the formal schools they have now joined

Parents were pleased with the functioning of the TECs. In particular, the attitude of the teaching volunteers towards their children, the provision of the mid day meal, vocational skills imparted to children, the monthly stipend, the resource center and the hope of their children being mainstreamed into formal schools were key attractions of the TECs.

b) Nila Palli (Moon school):

This ingenious concept is immensely responsible for the scale that the project has achieved in its two years. A native folk concept of the village community gathering on full moon nights to participate in ‘nila choru’ or supper under the moonlight has been very beautifully adapted to the advantage of the project. It has strengthened public awareness on child labour and created an opportunity to showcase childrens’ talent on a public platform. The Nila Pallis are organized once a month on full moon days in open spaces in areas and villages neighboring the location of a TEC. Upto October 2006, 51 Nila pallis have been organized. The Nila Palli serves as a platform for children enrolled in the TEC to exhibit their talent through cultural programs and as a public forum for the project staff, teaching volunteers of TECs, parents and participating members from the NCLP society to express their experiences and views on issues such as enrollment and mainstreaming of children into regular schools, the push and pull factors influencing child labour and drop out.

c) Income generation alternatives:The formation of SHGs and initiation of vocational training centers for mothers whose children are enrolled in TECs have made it possible for families to retain their children in TECs and simultaneously find alternate means for additional income. A total of 63 SHGs of women have been formed in the 54 villages where the TECs are functioning and with this support they have independently started the cultivation of ground nuts, cattle feed, flowers and also rear goats.

Box II

c) Identification and mainstreaming into ‘lead’ schools

d) Collective support


Self Help Groups

The INDUS project realized that since several families were living in abject poverty, withdrawal of children from work would result in a relapse until the family found a viable means to economically compensate for the income earned by the child. SHGs were started in all 54 villages where the TECs were located. Initially, an internal savings exercise was started and each member saved Rs 10 monthly. This soon rose to Rs 30 and the members were ready to formalize themselves into a group and opened a bank account.

During my discussion with 11 SHG members of Muttarpatti village in Sattur Taluk, they said that the formation of the SHG had brought a positive change in their lives and they no longer depended on their childrens’ economic support. The SHG leader said that with the one lakh rupees that the group obtained as a loan, most members bought goats and it had turned out to be a profitable investment. The group today pays an interest of Rs 200 and each individual saves an average of Rs 50 monthly.

As a part of the vocational skill training, the project has made sewing classes operational in several villages where the mothers of children enrolled in TECs are given free classes in sewing for a period of six months. The cloth required is also provided for free by the project and the class timings are scheduled keeping in mind the working hours of the mothers.

d) Monthly stipend given to children: The TECs report a high retention rate. The project reports that there have been only 10 children who dropped out because their parents migrated. The monthly stipend of Rs 100 given to each child is an important factor which has helped to retain children in the TECs. The District Collector feels “the stipend is a very important economic incentive for the family to retain the child in the TEC. This practice should be continued.” Though the stipend is not much relief when compared to the monthly earnings of the child, parents said that given their economic plight, it is the only way parents who are keen to send their children to school can do so and yet stand to gain marginally.

Table 4: Impact of intervention 7

Sl no: Title Scale

1 Beneficiaries identified Male Female Total 1224 2036 3260

2 TECs Sanctioned Running Mainstreamed8

83 54 29

3 Children enrolled in TEC Male Female Total793 816 1609

4 Children mainstreamed Below 9 years (direct

mainstreaming) 9-14 years

30 204

5 Vocational training (VT)Number of TECs

imparting VT

Number of children (9-14

years) attending VT

Number of trades within VT

54 1609 15

6 Primary Health Care

Health check ups conducted

Number of children covered

Visits by Govt doctors

Monthly once by VHW 1609 Once in 2 months

7 Income generation Activities

Number of SHGs formed (for mothers)

Number of members enrolled

Number of members provided

with a loan

Total loan amount

provided (in Rupees)

63 1112 489 9,89,000

7 Data provided by the INDUS project 8 These TECs are shut since all the children attending the TEC have been mainstreamed into regular schools


Problems and challenges

The changing face of child labour is a major concern. While the problem has been tackled fairly successfully in the hazardous sector, child labour has been driven underground and is now not in public view.

Box IIIChild labour at the doorstep!

Returning after meeting with several teaching volunteers and children in a TEC in Sivakasi block, I got a preview to the latest ‘avatar’ of child labour through the open doors to the living room of a house. Several children were sitting in a circle and filling match boxes with match sticks. When I enquired with the field staff accompanying me, she confirmed that the children were child labourers. The problem she explained was that since these homes or ‘outlets’ were not registered factories or shops, they could not be raided. They fell into the disguised labour category that resulted in a direct hindrance to the identification and withdrawal of these children. I was also told that with children no longer being employed in factories and shops (for fear of the penalty if caught), they were driven to working in these homes. Moreover, the house owners were veterans in defending such incidents with excuses such as the child was only ‘helping out’ or was not a ‘regular employee’ or most commonly that ‘ the child was replacing his/her parent during the parent’s tea break’.

Though parents were growing more aware of the situation of child labour in the district, a proactive role was yet to be taken by a few parents in prioritizing the withdrawal of their children and enrollment into schools before other needs. Further, several families were interested only in enrolling their children in the TECs and not in mainstreaming children as their interest lay in the stipend and not in the merits of education per se. Employers also had to take responsibility for the demand they created for child labourers. Their support in the area of making sure that all children employed in their factory or shops were above the age of 14 years needed reinforcement. Better employment opportunities also needed to be generated in the district which would place greater value to education.

Some teachers felt that the children from the TECs were not able to cope with English and Maths of the formal curriculum and this could also lead to their dropping out of the formal schools when mainstreamed. In their opinion, the curriculum followed in the TECs needed to be revamped.

While discussing ‘mainstreaming of children’ with parents, a common problem stated by the parents is the discrimination their children faced after mainstreaming. They said that their children were mocked as “Noor ruba makkal” or “Hundred Rupee child” by their peers studying in regular schools.


Box IV

“100 rupee schools” An anguished mother whose son is in the VIII standard recounted the harsh discrimination her son had to face in the formal school. She explained that after her child was mainstreamed, he was constantly taunted by peers on the grounds that he was a ‘child labourer’ and had studied in ‘100 rupees school’. When the mother approached the headmaster with this problem, she was told that “children from TECs need to be working in shops and not studying along with regular school children.” She was also told that “when the family doesn’t have money to buy books, why is it necessary to educate the child at all?” Not withstanding this insult, she complained to the Collector who dealt with the Headmaster with an iron hand. The Headmaster was transferred and a new Headmaster was brought in his place. She said that “discrimination does exist against the children who are mainstreamed into regular schools, but action needs to be taken against such behavior”.

The project staff felt that the project received tremendous support and co-operation from the government and the members of the NCLP society. The District collector in particular was very interested in the project and personally participated in Nila Palli, rallies, sticker and poster campaigned against child labour and had become the leading mascot for the INDUS project. They also mentioned the support given by the Department of Education, Health, supervisor of industries and the block level officials like the BDO, RTO etc. The District Collector recognizes that “convergence among all other government department is the key problem.” The success of the NCLP project depends on the coordinated efforts of all concerned departments.

The INDUS Project through its approach and interventions has been able to eliminate child labour from the lives of several children who were identified as child labourers. These children have also been successfully enrolled in TECs or mainstreamed into regular schools. But at the same time, since the factors behind the persistence of child labour continue to exist, it is difficult to prevent new incidence of child labour. Moreover, with children being employed in homes, it has become difficult to identify children from the working sector. However, two important aspects that have contributed to the effectiveness of the project which need to be taken into consideration prior to any replication are the necessary complete support and convergence from the allied government departments and the availability of local staff members and teaching volunteers.

In the case of the INDUS project, the chairperson, the District Collector has become the motivating spirit for the project and some of his recent innovative strategies like the anti child labour signature campaign and sticker campaign involving public undertaking by the employers and shop owners in the district to support the cause has had a tremendous influence on the public and strengthened their awareness like none before. Moreover, his active interest is also responsible for the convergence achieved so far of the government departments. Regarding the project staff, the strength of the project lies in the fact that they belong to Virudhunagar district and are familiar with the community, their psyche, the pattern behind the incidence and spread of child labour and the local language and dialects spoken. They are able to tap the needs of the families and cater to them effectively. The ILO through the INDUS Project has made a significant impact to this situation and has successfully withdrawn several child labourers through its integrated approach of providing alternatives for schooling and mainstreaming of children and at the same time ensuring that they are not pulled back into work by addressing the livelihood needs of the families.


Case Study III

3. Activity Based Learning Programme in Schools of the Corporation of ChennaiA M U K T A M A H A P A T R A

Threads Woven TogetherTHE Activity-based Learning (ABL) Program initiated in 260 schools of the Corporation of Chennai is the result of various programs implemented by different departments at different points in time.

The program started in May 2003 with the following objectives:

To ensure that a majority of the children can read, write and acquire basic math skills

To address child development in a holistic way, not merely in the academic areas

To enable the development of all faculties of the child

To create opportunities for children to learn with the teacher as a facilitator

To make classroom practices attractive for children

To retain children in the school system

To make the goals of SSA, a national program for providing quality education for all children by 2007, a reality

Tamil Nadu has been weighed down by the feeling that its education system has not been quite up to the mark in spite of it having one of the best infrastructures among large states, high enrolment rates and enough regular teachers. Many agreed that the state needed to walk the last few miles to get its children to attain good competency levels. This acceptance, by and large, paved the way for the ABL program.

The years preceding the ABL saw several developments.

1. With the start of the District Primary Education Programme, education in Tamil Nadu entered a new phase. Thousands of teachers were trained under the program. Ideas such as TLM, innovation in classroom teaching, government-NGO coordination etc took root. Textbooks were reviewed on a large scale and the focus shifted from course curriculum/subject to the learner. Dropout rates, child retention in schools and action research became all important for the state education department, the Tamil Nadu Textbook Corporation, teachers and educators.

2. The concept of ‘Joyful Learning’ brought about another wave of change in the state, including the Corporation. Teachers began to harness their creative energies to reach out to the children.


In 2001-03, the DTERT trained almost the entire 500-odd DIET faculty of the state in developing a professional attitude to quality education and delineated the role of DIETs in the goal of enhancing quality schooling at the district level. One of the main outcomes of the program was that it was more critical for the child to participate in her learning and construct her own knowledge than for the teacher to be active and creative.

3. One of the perceived effects in Tamil Nadu of the SSA (launched in 2002) was decentralization of planning at the block and district levels. The finances distributed district-wise also made an impact. The SSA brought to the forefront many issues of reaching quality education to the children among the teaching fraternity in the state.

In May 2003, the present Commissioner of the Corporation brought with him his long association with education. As soon as he took office, the Chennai Corporation made reaching good education to the children in its schools a major thrust area. As he said in discussion with the author, “…we knew the problem, we knew the solution, and it was put into practice straightaway.”

The plan was to start with primary classes and graduate to addressing the issues of learning in the upper primary. The authorities also felt that once these children went up to higher classes with a new base and spirit of learning, the senior classes could be better enabled to change their approach to teaching and learning.

The corporation adopted RIVER – the methodology developed by the Rishi Valley Rural Education Centre in its satellite schools. The method has been well documented and its details are in the public domain. For the Corporation, the USP of the model was that it was a readily available system, with built-in processes that ensures learning happens at every step along with continuous evaluation. The sequence of learning is open and transparent, known to the child and to any visitor who walks into the class at any time of the year. It has been adapted by many large programs in India and has been successfully implemented in government systems. The ABL program was started with this as a framework for classroom practice.

Lessons from the professional development program conducted for the DIET faculty and other education personnel for bringing in quality education processes through participation, was also woven into the framework. This experience yielded materials, mainly for mathematics, based on the Montessori idea of self learning; the strategy and approach to training; understanding of classroom practices and behaviour of teachers; and the understanding of children’s learning requirements and the gross underestimation of their capabilities in schools.

These two streams, woven together by the Corporation to bring quality learning at the primary level, seem to be providing a solution to the problems that dog the system. Some of these problems identified by the teachers themselves are:

A child’s learning of basic academic skills is not ensured

Teacher dominates the classroom all the time, with no allowance for children to learn or develop on their own

It is assumed that all children will learn the same thing at the same time and in the same manner

The multi-grade and multi-level nature of a classroom is not addressed

The teacher depends purely on conventional modes of teaching


TLM is rarely used as a normal practice

Most of the materials used do not lend themselves to self-learning

The syllabus is ‘covered’ by the teacher, but not necessarily by the child

There is no opportunity for the child to learn the lessons missed, if s/he is absent

Evaluation methods are not scientific and do not feed into classroom transactions

Parents’ participation in their child’s school life is minimal

The ABL program set out to overcome these difficulties and make the classroom a more holistic space for learning and working with children through the year.

Timeline: May 2003 to March 2006May-July 2003

Besides the AEOs and supervisors who are a part of the administration structure of the corporation (refer organogram), four coordinators with experience of the Joyful Learning program and one with additional experience of what is now called as the Self-Learning Method in Tamil Nadu, were appointed to look after the implementation of the ABL program. Teaching cards were prepared following a visit by teachers from three corporation schools to RIVER in 1997-98. The teachers had brought back a set in Telugu. The coordinators in charge of different subjects translated and adapted the materials along with a team of teachers. The program took off without ado in these three schools with photocopies of the translated material.

August 2003

It was decided to include in the first phase 10 schools - one school in each zone - plus the three schools whose teachers had gone for training earlier to RIVER and had already started in July that term. An orientation-training program was held in Chennai for teachers from these 13 schools. An MoU was signed between RIVER, the Chennai Corporation and UNICEF to the effect that a team from Rishi Valley would visit for supervision and guidance.

September 2003

A team went for training to RIVER for five days. It consisted of two teachers each from the selected 10 schools across the zones, plus the teachers from the earliest three schools, two supervisors from two zones, a lecturer from DIET and a professor who was on lien from the DTERT and was one of the coordinators of the ABL program. The Joint Commissioner, Education, acquainted himself with the method, the classroom practices and the support required adapting the model successfully to the corporation schools.

Post-training, the 13 schools spread over 10 zones started with a set of photocopied materials end of September. Children of classes 1 and 2 were clubbed together to get the advantage of a multi-grade classroom. * These schools were the forerunners for the others to follow.


Oct 2003-March 2004

This was seen as an experimental phase in which the teachers were helped to appreciate the details necessary for any product/ program/ process to be qualitative. Meetings were conducted every Saturday with the teachers of the 13 schools. The coordinators and the Commissioner would be present at the meetings and together they resolved issues, helping each other to look at some deeper problems and find pedagogical solutions.

Mr Padmanabha Rao and his team from Rishi Valley came to help and guide frequently, especially in the preparation of materials and for further training. This time, the prototypes cards were printed.

Pedagogy in PlaceThe focus of the intervention in the first year of scaling to cover all the primary and middle schools was on training the teachers and BRTs, distribution of materials and putting the system in place.

The week-long training program conducted by Mr Padmanabha Rao & Ms Rama, in the Rishi Valley Rural Education Centre saw vociferous protests from many of the teachers about sitting on the floor, the seemingly chaotic classroom, the variety of symbols used, about working in a multi-grade classroom... Gradually, however, the protests gave way to excitement of implementing a new program, of being among the first agents of change, of improving the lot of children under their care – and knowing that the corporation would back them in all their efforts.

From photocopies to printed learning cards for classes 1 and 2, the material itself went through many changes. Class 3 had photocopied material this year. But from the new academic year in June 2006, both classes 3 and 4 will have attractively printed learning material. The Tamil Nadu syllabus and textbooks were the reference point for the subject material that was prepared keeping in mind the competencies and skills expected of each class.

The cost of one set of material for all four subjects (Tamil, Math, EVS, English) for Classes I and II, printed in colour was Rs. 2023/- for a group of twenty children. This works out to Rs 100/- per child, which is comparative to the cost of a good textbook. Here they were getting four textbooks and more packed into each set. In fact the life of the card material will be more than a year definitely, with a few spares required to replace damaged or lost pieces in the second and third years. One cannot say the same of a textbook, which by the end of the year is usually in tatters.

The Corporation initially paid the total cost for 2000 sets to the Textbook Corporation, Department of Education, Government of Tamilnadu. SSA paid this back after the proposal given by the Corporation to the SSA in Chennai district was accepted in mid 2005. It may be pertinent to mention here that in the scaling up of the programme across the state (10 schools have been selected in each of the 400 odd blocks adding up to about 4000 schools), the Textbook Corporation will distribute the sets free, since it is like giving an extra textbook to each child.

Over January 2005, 1346 sets of learning cards were issued to schools. Two sets each were given to the 10 BRTs in Chennai district and 29 DIETs. UNICEF got 100 sets for future distribution, a set each to the Block Resource Centres and each Director from the various education departments and two sets went to the SSA. Besides the cards, a


Self-Learning Material (SLM) kit for conceptual understanding of mathematics (was earlier developed along with the former principal of Abacus School for a DTERT program) is also being distributed to schools in phases.

The whole range of materials is displayed in various places - exhibitions/melas, for example – to generate awareness among parents and the community in general.

ChallengesThe biggest challenge for any kind of systemic or large-scale change is to keep out mechanical reproductions. Efforts to upscale an already existing model or follow in its footsteps have been made many times, but without much success.

Each effort has to be a generative process. This does not imply that one has to start from ground zero each time. Every fresh beginning needs to take off from the earlier points of arrival. The past has to be taken into account, principles culled out and plans made, building on earlier achievements. Can the Chennai Corporation and the state of Tamil Nadu enable this process, while establishing standards in all the spheres of quality education? Can the state use its authority and responsibility in the right direction to give children the quality they deserve? The question that the Commissioner often posed to the teachers was ‘If we cannot do it, who else can?’ - If the Corporation of Chennai and the Department of Education, Tamil Nadu cannot do this with all the built-in advantages, who else can?

To create the right atmosphere for a large-scale program with all the right ingredients and the right approach to quality learning is very much a possibility within the ambit of the state. It needs a calm, long-term, positive effort from which the gains can be immediate and visible, right from day one.


Case Study IV

4. From QIP to CLIP: The case of Andhra Pradesh B H A R A T P A T N I

BackgroundBringing visible change in 64,161 schools where learning levels were clearly abysmal, in a system which boasts of 4.17 lakh teachers strongly knit into five trade unions, annual admissions of over 10.80 lakh primary age group children, more than 4.23 lakh out-of-school children – the task would be clearly daunting for even the strongest administrators!

Till 2001, the AP state administrators were grappling with age-old issues, such as their schools not opening on time, abnormal levels of teacher absenteeism, practically no inspection visits for the last 15 years, and low children attendance. In the academic session 2001-02, the state launched the Learning Guarantee Program (LGP) on a pilot basis in two mandals of two districts. Data about the children’s low learning levels of all the 3-Rs was shared with the stakeholders, including parents, panchayats, teachers and supervisory/monitoring staff. The government looked forward to generating a sense of urgency and enthusiasm among them as also replicating the LGP in the other districts with the help of NGOs.

The Pupil Assessment Reform at the Primary Stage – another AP Education Department initiative in this period - focussed on assessing children during the teaching learning process itself by increasing the frequency of unit tests, and including project work etc while making formative assessments of learning levels.


Several other strategies and initiatives, such as Chaduvula Panduga (Learning festival), the Mid-day Meal Scheme, etc., resulted in a surge in school enrolment at primary level, and the Education Department reported that 97% of eligible children were now “in school”. But the problem of low learning levels of in-school children, and the consequential low retention rate, led to a serious rethink within the system.

Thus, during the academic session of 2003-04, the then State Project Director for the SSA introduced “Quality Improvement Program” (QIP) with a clearly articulated objective that most children will achieve minimum specified competency levels in the 3-Rs within 45 days of intensive teaching in mission mode. The government attempted to build up the capacities of teachers – with extra emphasis on child development, the assessment procedure, and of course, the subject teaching.

Pre-tests were conducted on children in grades 2 to 5, and based on their performance, they were graded from A to E. Appropriate level of remedial teaching followed thereafter backed up by regular monitoring by district and mandal education officers. Post-tests indicated that percent children in A-B-C categories went up from 48.5% to 77.15% in language, and 47.88% to 71.14% in arithmetic! The QIP process – after planning from pre-tests to implementation to post-tests – took 45 days.

Box V: Confronting Reality

Chandramouli brought into play his formal training in mass communications9 to reach out to the hearts of his teachers, via his mandal and district education officers, by adopting a unique communication strategy. He had realized that most statistics reeled out by the district and mandal teams were, perhaps, not based on the whole truth. Step one was to make them realize the ground realities about the pathetic levels to which their teaching staff had fallen.

On July 18th, 2005, “Children Language Improvement Programme” (CLIP) was announced to all the DEOs, DIET Principals, and SSA’s Additional Project Co-ordinators who are located in the districts. Each of the three key officers of every district was required to personally (i.e., not depute other officers for this task) spend as observers one whole day separately at any two schools of their choice in their district on 21 st and 22nd July... The ground rules were simple: do not cheat (yourself!) by dishonest reporting, and clarify to the MEOs and school staff that the intention was not to take disciplinary action as a result of this exercise. The data collection was to be as per a specified proforma10.

Twenty-three district teams disclosed their findings during a state-level meeting on July 25 th at Hyderabad. All myths were demolished as realization dawned on the assembly that even though the TPR was an overall healthy 1:2611, the actual status of children’s learning level was way below what they had always imagined it to be! Even, in East Godavari District, for example, which has for long been considered as the most “developed” in AP, only 8% of the children in this sample were found as able to read a simple text, and just 3% able to perform the multiplication and division operations! Mere numbers no longer made any sense!

Source: Bharat Patni, QIP to CLIP, field notes 2006, Case Study III Annexure I

9 Mr K. Chandramouli earned a Mass Comm degree from Birmingham, UK, before his appointment in the IAS.10 Data was collected on total school enrolment, number of children present; numbers of sanctioned teacher posts, numbers actually working, and numbers actually present; the TPR; the %-age teacher attendance in the previous year; the %-age children in Grades II-V who could read, write, and perform the 4 basic arithmetic operation; whether the duties were assigned to teachers class-wise or subject-wise.11 “Teachers” here include Vidya Volunteers, who are para-teachers


Two academic sessions later, AP’s emotionally charged new SPD K Chandramouli was confronted with the still appalling condition of the state’s primary education system. Members of the community, the panchayats were more interested, for obvious reasons, in spending funds on school infrastructure rather than on improving the teaching learning process. The indifference of the system in general, “was a pain in the heart” of the SPD. Even in the universally acknowledged most-advanced district of East Godavari, barely 27% children between grades 2 to 5 were able to read simple text, and 17% were able to write! The “system was rotting”; something simply had to be done, and there was little time to waste.

It was now clear that the QIP strategy needed to be considerably modified. For one, there was no sustained and visible change in the mindset of the teachers after the 45-day period of intervention. Further, it was also back to normal business for everyone in the system as soon as the 46th day dawned! What the SPD really wanted was a seamless and continuous intervention during the academic session.

The Action Plan for 2005-06The SPO then rolled out its action plan.

Academic year 2005-06 will primarily focus on improvement of the 3-Rs (reading, writing, and arithmetic) in classes 1 to 5. Program will commence on August 11, 2005, to be preceded by a very tight orientation.

Testing and identification of children under A or B (i.e., can or cannot) categories, based on their achievement in language and numeracy skills12 would form the baseline for the program. Testing would be, thereafter, undertaken by teachers on a month-wise basis, and progress of individual children would be recorded in teacher-wise registers.

Grading of schools under A (80% and above), B (60-79%), C (50-59%), or D (49% and below) based on their pupils’ performance in the tests.

Strengthening of external inspection and monitoring system, involving MRPs, MEOs, Deputy EOs, etc.; institutionalizing district, divisional, and state-level monitoring mechanisms

Teachers to assume responsibility class-wise rather than subject-wise. Special focus on classes 1 and 2: only active regular teachers (i.e., not Vidya Volunteers - VVs) to be allotted these classes. Special programs for remedial teaching, with special attention to slow learners in classes 3, 4 and 5.

Use of TLM / modules developed by the state pedagogy and teacher’s training department team for accelerated learning of language and basic arithmetical operations.

Provision of adequate quantities of children’s literature and strengthening of school libraries, with a view to focus on the development of the reading habit, and encouraging children to read for pleasure.

12 Teachers, MRPs, and MEOs were assured that no adverse action would be taken on them as long as test results were honestly recorded in child-wise registers teachers were expected to maintain on their own.


The Ground RulesThe following simple rules were drilled into the entire team:

Teachers and Headmasters shall not leave their schools without prior permission; MEOs and DEOs will NOT withdraw teachers from the school without clear approval from the Director of School Education

There shall be a very strict embargo on record keeping / report writing during school hours. Mandal Resource Persons will visit schools and collect records / data from school records themselves

Teachers shall, henceforth, take all the subjects for one (or more) specific class(es), and stop teaching many classes subject-wise

Tools and techniques for accelerating the development of the 3 R’s shall be utilized, as specified by the pedagogy and teacher training team at SPO in Hyderabad; one period in all primary and upper primary schools every day shall be assigned to library activity – children shall be encouraged to borrow books and read on their own

Only active regular teacher(s), and definitely not Vidya Volunteers, shall teach classes 1 and 2. This was with a view to forming a firm foundation of the child

TPRs shall be maintained at specified levels; vacancies, maternity leave positions, and long leave positions to be immediately filled by Vidya Volunteers, to be paid via School Education Committees out of SSA funds

Teachers shall be required to track irregular children and counsel parents by visiting their homes, and recording details of such visits in their registers

Besides other normal duties, HMs shall also conduct meetings with parents, once every month, to discuss attendance and child’s test performance; review child’s performance every Saturday with the teachers; minutes of both these meetings shall be recorded and made available to inspection teams

Most importantly, the SPD shall keep his cell phone on all the time to enable him to receive feedback from any interested stakeholder, which included the children!

MonitoringThe SPO laid down clear instructions for monitoring at each level.

At the school level, the teachers and HM are responsible for:

Baseline and monthly testing / data analysis / record keeping of each child’s performance on reading, writing, and four basic arithmetical operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)

Saturday discussion meetings with teachers on weekly performance / achievements / problem solving

Maintenance of month-wise tables indicating class-wise grading, and overall grading of the school.


Table 5: Testing of Children’s PerformanceReading Reading of 5 sentences of the previous lessonWriting Dictation of 20 words from the lessons completedAddition Two numbers each of 2-digit numbers for Class II

Two numbers each of 3-digit numbers for Class IIIThree numbers each of 4-digit numbers for Class IVFour numbers each of 5-digit numbers for Class V

Subtraction Two numbers each of 2-digit numbers for Class IITwo numbers each of 3-digit numbers for Class IIIThree numbers each of 4-digit numbers for Class IVFour numbers each of 5-digit numbers for Class V

Multiplication 2-digit numbers with 1-digit numbers for Class II2-digit numbers with 2-digit numbers for Class III3-digit numbers with 2-digit numbers for Class IV4-digit numbers with 2-digit numbers for Class V

Division 1-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers for Class II2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers for Class III3-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers for Class IV4-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers for Class V

If the child can do with minimum 80% accuracy, the grade is A; otherwise, Grade B

Verbal problems may also be given by examiners for the arithmetical operations

Problems may be given from the completed chapters, or, in the event the chapters have not been completed, from even earlier classes.

Teacher’s Child-wise Grades Register


Typical Charts on School Notice Boards

Monitoring at different levelsAt the mandal level:

Every school will be inspected for one complete day at least once every month; MRPs / MEOs will test every child in that school, compare their own test results with the grades given by the class teacher, analyze reasons for variance (if any), record progress made since last visit;

MEOs will visit at least nine schools every month, and spend one full day there; they will divide the remaining schools in the mandal between themselves

MEOs will also conduct a review meeting with the school committee and other community members, after school hours for the every school visited by them

MEOs will also conduct a review meeting with all HMs at the beginning of every month

At the district level:

The leadership for monitoring vested with the Deputy EO

For every five mandals, a six-member inspection team13 constituted, further grouped into three teams @ two members per team

Each two-member team will randomly visit one school per day (covering three schools) for five continuous days, covering all the five mandals during one week. Inspection visits are facilitated by the use of one vehicle per Education

13 Members to be chosen out of active HMs of High Schools / DIET lecturers, to represent each of the 5 mandals


Division to be hired14 on a monthly basis for utilization by this six-member team on simultaneous basis.

The two-member team will test all children, verify / compare grades given by MRPs and prominently display the grade of the school based on children’s performance; also, meet community members / parents after school hours

The DEOs, APCs, and DIET Principals will visit five schools in a month individually, stay one full day at the school, test all the children, and compare / analyse grades awarded by others

In the presence of state level observers, DEOs will conduct monthly reviews with (a) monitoring teams, and (b) MEOs / MRPs, along with first-level monitoring team members.

At the state level:

One team constituted for each of the 23 districts to randomly visit those schools across the divisions which had been visited by the district teams

State teams to also stay for one whole working day in a school, administer tests to all the children, compare grades awarded by district teams; if the variance was unacceptable, caution the district team; after school hours, the teams to conduct meetings of the SEC and community members

State team members to attend the review meetings of the district monitoring teams, MRPs, and MEOs – to be conducted at the office of the DEO; teams to visit the district schools in the week prior to the district review meetings

At the RJD level15:

Random monitoring of at least two schools per district per month, stay one whole day in the school visited, and personally assess and compare children’s test scores with other monitoring reports

Monthly review of the outcomes with DEOs, Deputy EO, APC, and DIET Principals, and submission of progress reports to DSE and SPD

At the SPO level:

The SPD will conduct monthly teleconferences to review district-wise outcomes

Accompanied by a 30-member state team, the SPD will also visit different districts every month and, thereafter, conduct district review meetings at district headquarters

The entire expenditure on school monitoring, including the payment of travelling and daily allowances, hiring of vehicles, printing of reporting formats, generation of reports, etc., is being borne out of the R&E component of the district SSA funds.

14 Expenditure on vehicle to be met from the R&E component from SSA funds available to districts15 Regional Joint Directors are education officers in-charge of approx 5 to 6 districts each


Box VI:Call me anytime!

It is 11.30 am on a Monday morning on 28th February. The cell phone sitting on State Project Director’s desk starts ringing in between a serious discussion on CLIP. He glances at the caller’s name and immediately picks up the phone – the call is from the DEO of West Godavari. The loudspeaker mode is activated since the SPO CLIP team is in his office; the team is all ears. This turns out to be an unsolicited personal report on the month’s positive outcome of the CLIP programme. A 5-minute animated conversation in Telugu follows, and the SPD is visibly moved at the end of it! Yes, he says, his untiring efforts to change the mindset of the education bureaucracy are yielding results.He recounts calls from two young children in the last two days – Aishwarya and Pallavi. They had called him from public phone booths, spending a rupee each from their meagre pocket money, and read out extracts from the daily newspaper to prove that, thanks to their vastly improved schools, they were now able to read!The SPD believes that his task as SPD would be really completed the day a village kid makes a scheduled stop on his way from home to school at 8.30 in the morning, and at the wayside tea shop or a barber shop, reads out the headlines from a local newspaper to the assembled mostly illiterate senior citizens – a few having eyes with blurred cataract affected vision- and then runs off in time for his 9.00 am morning prayer in the school!

Teachers’ TrainingThe Pedagogy and Training Unit of SPO, Hyderabad, is actively engaged in designing the training content for the CLIP program, as well as in ensuring that the teachers are trained on a regular basis to perform the teaching tasks assigned to them. The State Academic Monitoring Officer (SAMO) and his team are involved in the development and dissemination of tools and techniques for accelerated teaching and learning of deprived children.

The Assistant Monitoring Officers attached to the district offices, in turn, are required to

arrange trainings at the district and mandal levels

disseminate from the district project office all proceedings and orders issued by the SPO to DIET Principals and MEOs for effective program implementation

conduct monthly review meetings with Deputy EOs at the divisional level, and at the district level with DEOs, APCs, and DIET Principals

monitor the divisional level monitoring team visits, consolidate and submit to the SPO such visit reports through the APCs and DEOs

conduct TC meetings / school complex meetings and discuss language and arithmetic issues

collect and disseminate success stories of CLIP program implementation

coordinate the visits of the state teams to the districts

initiate action on monitoring reports through APC and DEOs

regulate the printing and supply of monitoring formats to all monitoring officers

Observations during visits to randomly selected schools in three mandals of Ranga Reddy District


The following schools were visited on 28th Feb 06 and 1st March 06: CUPS Parvatapur, PS Gandhinagar, and PS Laxmi Narsimha Colony in Ghatkesar Mandal; CPS Sheriguda in Ibrahimpatan Mandal; UPS Dadpalli and UPS Cheeded in Manchal Mandal.

Prior to 9.00 am, almost all teachers & VVs were present at Parvatapur and Sheriguda schools. At 9.00 am sharp, the children had assembled for the prayers, oath taking ceremonies, and other tasks such as reading from the morning papers, announcements, etc. were conducted. Average TPRs were very healthy at all the schools, though at the remotely located Gandhinagar school, which has only 55 children with two regular teachers, each of the teachers was necessarily involved in multi-grade teaching.

Average school attendance was observed to be a high of 84.6% of enrolment! Teachers and VVs appeared earnestly engaged in the task of improving their class, and hence the school grades. They were utilising their TLM allocation out of SSA funds.

Children appeared happy and interested in their school. Both the children and teachers were pressing the observers to conduct tests and award grades to the classes.

Areas of concern were the continuing pathetic levels in writing and multiplication / division operations among children. Class teachers were searching for quick fix solutions to tackle this. In general, they felt that more practical training was required if the SPO is really keen on all schools achieving Grade A by the end of this academic year.

Class-wise libraries were functional at all schools, though the books available were neither enough, nor did they appear age appropriate or attractive. Post lunch, one period was being devoted to reading of library books.

Though the schools closer to the main roads were on the regular inspection beats of the officers, remote locations such as Dadpalli and Cheeded had not been visited for almost 2 whole months. Reason provided by Mr Babu Rao, (the MEO Manchal Mandal) was that the MRP, Mr Srinivas, had been seconded for “ration card duty”! However, L Ravindra, one of the recently promoted MRPs in Ghatkesar Mandal, landed up on his own to meet the observers, and explained his role in the CLIP program.

The MDM (mid day meal) at the two schools visited during lunch time tasted very good. Children were clearly enjoying their meals. SHGs had been involved in cooking and serving the MDM.

School infrastructure was adequate though lack of toilets in two of the schools must surely be an issue for the girl child.

Community contributions at all the locations were satisfactory. Children’s furniture, almirahs, steel plates for children

The ImpactAs mentioned earlier, all the 23 districts themselves conducted rapid assessments (six schools per district) via their DEOs / APCs, and DIET Principals in July 2005; the results presented to the SPO on July 25 th were tabulated. On an average, the percentages of children who were able to perform on various operations were as per the following table:


Table 6: % 6-14 year olds who were able to perform with at least 80% accuracy

R W + - X Division

42 24 47 33 23 17

During November-December 2005, an independent assessment of AP’s learning levels was completed on a sample basis in 22 districts (out of 23) by Pratham, who networked with Lok Satta, and hundreds of unpaid volunteers.

The published results for classes 2 to 5 in government-run rural schools are as under:

Table 7: Published results for classes 2 to 5% children who can read % children who can solve numerical written sums

Level 1 Level 2 Subtraction or Division Division

60.4 37 59.8 28.3

LegendLevel 1: ability to read a small paragraph with short sentences of Class I difficultyLevel 2: ability to read a ‘story’ text with some long sentences of Class II difficultySubtraction: 2-digit subtraction with borrowingDivision: 3-digit division by 1 digit

ConclusionIt is, perhaps, a little too early to conclude whether the dice has been cast in favour of Mr Chandramouli and his team at the State Project Office. Qualitative indicators are certainly very positive. When asked about his reaction to ASER 2005’s findings, Mr Chandramouli simply said, “We have the data from ASER 2005; please wait till ASER 2006!


Case Study V

5. School Monitoring Profile, UttaranchalN I S H I M E H R O T R A

The Canvass THE new state of Uttaranchal was carved out of the northern part of Uttar Pradesh in 2000. Out of its 13 districts, a majority are mountainous and hilly, with some regions having scattered habitations (particularly rural). The urban towns and cities have a larger concentration of population whether in the plains or the hills. Therefore, schools are located as per the spread of habitation. This particular case study looks at the School Monitoring System of the state with reference to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which had its beginnings while within UP when the Basic Education Project (BEP) was initiated in the early nineties.

The present school monitoring system of Uttaranchal was in use in the UP BEP and DPEP III (District Primary Education Project) districts. When the Uttaranchal Sabhi ke liye Shiksha Parishad came into being in the new state of Uttaranchal in 2001, it retained the school grading system which focused largely on the physical aspects of schools, tracking interventions for civil works and maintenance during the DPEP phase.

The state Uttaranchal Sabhi ke liye Shiksha Parishad took a conscious decision to further develop the school monitoring system so that it could deliver a comprehensive status of schools, both physically and academically, on a regular basis for ensuring the quality of basic education.

The school monitoring system covers over 11,700 government primary schools, including primary sections of 2,500 upper primary schools, of the state. Until 2005 the system was focused on primary schools only, but upper primary schools have also been included in the coverage plan since 2005-06.

The schools are intensely monitored on two broad parameters –

Physical Infrastructure which includes status of building and compound, teaching aids/materials and school administration, school management, teachers, students, classroom practices, extra-curricular activities, community involvement and assessment procedures of children.

Student Achievement which includes classroom processes, co-curricular activities, academic achievements of students and their learning levels.

Table 8: TimelineDec. 1999 First initiative to grade schools with a checklist in all UP DPEP districts on

three basic parameters-physical status, teacher related and general classroom environment.

Oct/ Nov 2001 Three state-level workshops in Uttaranchal to further develop and refine the grading format into parts A for physical aspects and B for students’ achievements.


October 2003 A modified tool for school grading and monitoring communicated for use at the field level.

2002-2003 School monitoring system extended to all 13 districts. Earlier, it was used in the primary schools of six districts only.

2004-2005 Primary sections in 2500 upper primary schools also included for school monitoring.Near-universal use of question papers to test students in the last round of assessments.

August 2005 Instructions issued to functionaries at the district level to prepare block wise school grading maps after each round of school monitoring in October, January and March.Decision to use Grading Achievement Percentage (GAP to create maps to show the position of clusters/blocks/in a district and districts in the state.Key decisions communicated to CRCCs, BRCCs, DIETs, DPO, Additional Basic Shiksha Adhikari to implement the school grading system.

2005-2006 Upper Primary schools too included for school monitoring.Complete coverage for use of question papers to test students.Annual Work Plan and Budget prepared with a focus on school monitoring and grading right up from the cluster level.

What was initiated as a school grading system in 2000 has now evolved into a systematic ‘school performance and tracking system’ for comprehensive school assessment. The school has become the focal unit for decentralized planning interventions that are localized, demand and need based through use of the grading tool.

Objectives The school monitoring and grading system has been developed to target weak areas, teaching, performance of children, capacity building, competency enhancement etc and, thereby, improve school infrastructure and classroom processes. It envisages child- friendly assessment opportunities so that children do not feel encumbered by constant evaluation. It is an instrument for the development of schools through the processes of planning and implementation. In order to do achieve this, capacities are being built to identify problems and solutions right down at the micro level. The system also endeavours to establish linkages between cohort, Comprehensive and Continuous Evaluation (CCE) and grade maps. The goal is to ensure that children with better achievement levels enter higher education.

The defined objectives of the school monitoring system are:

Every child and every school to be periodically assessed by an external evaluator.

Every child to be assessed on minimum competencies.


‘Koti karan’ is a familiar word in SSA Uttaranchal, no matter with whom you interact - the functionaries of the education system or the community. It means grading in Hindi and is used for the school performance tracking and

Each school to be assessed taking into account the performance of students, teachers and SMCs (School Management Committees).

Identify factors that affect the learning performance of students at various levels.

Enable teachers to develop strategies to improve achievement levels of students rather than spend time on evaluation.

Involve the community in the overall school assessment process, particularly in monitoring the progress of their children and the school.

Develop a standardized tool that generates data to analyse the impact of interventions and initiatives.

Establish a fair, objective and unbiased assessment system.

The school monitoring system is based on an evaluation tool that seeks the holistic development of the school, cluster, block and district. The system embodies the following components/features to impact quality education:

A competency-based testing tool (CBTT) for school monitoring.

An evidence-based testing tool that is “developmental”, not “inspectorial”.

A holistic approach in which all factors of school development are included as parameters of assessment.

A dynamic, evolving system with an inherent capacity to incorporate required changes.

A transparent and participatory design for involving the community and wider sharing by implementers.

Amenable system for analysis to detect weak areas and gaps to inform remedial measures.

The basis for formulating the Annual Work Plan and Budget to maintain the quality of basic education.

Evolution of School GradingThe first step of grading schools with the aid of a school-based checklist was initiated in all DPEP districts of UP in 1999-2000, when Uttaranchal was a part of that state. The grading parameters were developed with the involvement of DIETs (District Institutes of Educational Training) and BSAs (Basic Shiksha Adhikari).

These grading parameters were divided into three categories:

the physical environment of the school,

teacher-related interventions

the classroom environment in general.

There are 10 sub- parameters within each of these three categories which are allotted a mark each, totalling 30 marks. On the basis of this, grades are allotted to schools as per the marks given to them by the Nyaya Panchayat Resource Centre Coordinators (NPRCC)16.

16


This basic format was developed to facilitate periodic assessment of improvements in schools by the NPRCCs, Block Resource Centre Coordinators (BRCC) and other visiting officials to schools. It was designed so that they could offer suggestions and facilitate remedial measures, which, in turn, would enable the schools to improve. Also, members of the Academic Core Team in DIETs were to assess the improvement in grades on a monthly basis.

When Uttaranchal came into being, SPO (State Project Office) of the Uttaranchal Sabhi ke Liye Shiksha Parishad awarded special priority to quality education in the state. Keeping in mind the merits of the school grading system, the new state program resolved to further develop the model of school monitoring into a more holistic and comprehensive system. Through the constitution of a State Resource Group (SRG) that included academicians, educationists, teachers, representatives of NGOs in the education sector and others, the SPO set about the task of identifying needs and addressing the gaps to fulfil its goal of quality education.

In the very first year, the SPO held workshops to refine and develop a comprehensive monitoring tool. Firstly, a draft grading format was developed with SRG members and project functionaries during three state-level workshops in DIET Rourkee, DIET Bhimtal and in Dehradun. A format that took into account the physical condition of the school and the status of students’ achievements evolved from these workshops. Consequently, parameters emerged for grading, division of grades as per marks in the format, the schedule for grading and guidelines for implementing the grading system and monitoring it. Finally, by the end of October 2003 the DPEP III districts were communicated guidelines for evaluation of schools along with the finalized format.

The Grading ProcessThe process of school grading and monitoring is quite interesting as it involves the different vertical tiers along with horizontal strengthening and accountability in the education system. While the schools are graded by the Cluster Resource Centre Coordinators (CRCC) at the NPRC level with the support of teachers and community (somewhat) in each cluster, they are further grouped and mapped at the block level by the BRCCs. The picture of each block is then mapped in the context of others in the district with BRCs, DIETs and District Project Office (DPO). The SPO, State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) and others are responsible for comprehensive school grading and mapping at the state level. This shows the results of interventions, crisis areas, need-based capacity building, remedial measures undertaken and the overall situation of each cluster, block and district on a quarterly basis. The main think-tank operates at the state level involving the SPO, DIETs and the SCERT. It is the second level of DPO, DIET and BRC (Block Resource Centre), which is the hub for monitoring, academic support, analysis of data and response for remedial measures.

The Grading Tool and its OperationalisationThe school grading tool, being used since 2004, comprises –

proforma A that lists the status of the school through nine sub-sections totalling 100 marks


proforma B listing students’ learning achievements in Language, Maths, Science, Social Studies, extra-curricular activities etc., also totalling 100 marks.

Each school is graded every quarter on both proforma by the CRC.

Marks allotted in each format are converted into respective grades. Each parameter is graded separately. For example, a school may be graded A for physical parameters and C for academic so its grade would be AC for that quarter. In the next quarter, it could have AB or BB grades. The score for that grading combination during a quarter illustrates the position and status of a particular school, cluster, block or district in comparison to others providing a basis for analysis and inputs.

According to the position, gaps and deficiencies can be assessed right to the school level, thereby enabling the flow of remedial measures. There are 25 possible combinations of grades through AA to EE.

The academic assessment tool and its implementation, unlike the physical assessment tool, have evolved over time. The process of assessment has moved from oral testing to written tests over the last three years. From writing the questions on the blackboard and using photocopies to giving written test papers, prepared by DIETs, even the format has come a long way. Even now individual test papers are not available for all the children in a class. Teachers and CRCCs feel that each child should have his /her own question paper. This may prove an expensive proposition to undertake.

As for the actual process of exams, four sets of test papers are prepared for each block for random use so that children do not have access to test papers in advance. Post-tests, the CRCCs and teachers from other schools in the cluster evaluate and mark them. The test papers are kept in the school itself but there is no register to record the performance of children over the three phases. In the schools visited in the two clusters of Chamoli district, all children in classes 2 and 5 were administered the tests in all subjects and the academic performance of the school was graded. The total marks obtained by the children in all test papers were divided by the number of children who were administered the test.

It is debatable whether this system can be used effectively and in a sustained manner in schools, especially in urban areas, with large numbers of children and several sections to a class. Some suggestions have been made by the implementers and administrators of the system on how to effectively use this system:

To take a representative number of children from all classes for testing a percentage of children per class, not numbers per class should be fixed children from classes 2 and 4 should be administered the tests so that there is the leverage of an academic year for improvement.

ManagementThe human resources for school monitoring and grading system are the existing personnel and structures at all levels with no extra deployment of people. The SPO, SRG, SCERT, DIETs coordinate, direct and review. They provide the backup for academic support like development and refinement of the tool and guidelines for its implementation. DIETs now have been actively involved in the preparation of question papers, monitoring and mentoring at the district and block levels and data analysis, and grading with BRCCs and CRCCs. After grading and analysis of schools/clusters the DPO, BRCs and CRCs, along with DIETs, work towards facilitation of specific


capacity-building inputs. The School Management Committees (SMC) and Village Education Committees (VEC) also play a crucial role in the implementation and monitoring of the schools in some areas. Box VII: What has worked to make it an operational model on scale?

The commitment of the SSA to follow up through the monitoring system and evolve planning around school development. A wide awareness about quality education at all levels through all stakeholders. The evolving design of the grading tool and the management system for it. Use of existing human resource structure at different levels. The indicators thrown up at the cluster level to diagnose and address weak areas. Building parents’ confidence in the school system so that they realise its value for their children.

Using school/cluster grading as the basis of developing annual work plans.

The program has taken systematic monitoring down to the cluster and school levels. There is a new consciousness about maintaining consistent quality in education. Districts are learning to take the initiative to build capacities among teachers and implementers at the cluster level. So far, some functionaries have learnt to critically examine and analyse school grading data, but this analysis has to pervade at all levels so that monitoring is not seen as a top-down mechanism but a need based quality improvement tool.

Observations from the field1. The schools visited looked welcoming, perched on a hillside or standing on a nearby road - painted, clean, swept and neat. Fruit-laden trees, flower beds and bright young faces – the picture was complete. Virtually each class had a teacher and even though not everyone was participating, students were aware of what they were learning.

2. A majority of the women teachers (who commuted from the nearby town to the school) in the blocks visited admitted that they had become conscious of the school timings. Their skills had improved due to the monitoring system as also their preparedness for taking classes so that during each quarter they were able to complete the course for that period. A few teachers said they helped needy students with notebooks and other stationery etc.

3. Teachers were comfortable learning from and help each other. Along with remedial assistance, they had started seeking solutions on their own. They were using TLMs to assist children to learn. Schools were borrowing and lending teachers wherever there was a shortage.

4. The focus was shifting to academic performance of children in poor performing clusters and blocks because both teachers and implementers were becoming conscious of quality.

5. Parents, particularly mothers were positive about the school environment and the learning of children. Though they were not literate in some areas, they were proud of their children, especially girls learning in the school. They did not


intervene in the day-to-day activities of the schools but kept an indirect watch whenever they passed by the school.

6. Some VECs and SMCs had also started evincing interest in the schools and their status though it has yet to become a norm. There were instances where they had provided labour or materials for construction of kitchen sheds in the school or making pathways to schools and keeping an eye the administration so that schools remained in good condition and children attended regularly.

ChallengesThe program has been able to take forward the school monitoring system through an evolutionary process. Various strategies have been used to involve all levels of personnel. However, there are certain challenges on the horizon:

There is a need to develop options for the tool/system to evolve in the context of specific local interventions/inputs.

Teachers and CRCCs have to make a conscious effort to maintain grade levels of the schools/clusters, once attained so that they do not fall behind.

Clusters with average to poor academic performance need to be given attention on a priority basis

Functionaries at block and cluster levels have to develop critical analytical competencies to use school-level academic assessment data to track the performance of children on a quarterly basis.

School-level data must be used intensively to plan localized strategies for academic improvement inputs that show up in children’s achievements.

There is a need to visualize how the process can be decentralized at the district level and also made less burdensome for the implementers and the children.

Communities, SMCs and VECs need to be more intensely involved in school support and monitoring through links with children.

The Uttaranchal SSA is in a position to address these challenges because it is already deliberating on making the grading tool more comprehensive and the system more inclusive regarding quality indicators – GER, NER, retention/dropout rates, promotion etc. The effort is to enhance competencies of teachers and implementers through cluster-based work plans and also formulating need-based activities and budgets. Schools are being visualised as centres of quality education for children as also the focal point of community education.


Case Study VI

6. Learning Guarantee Program, KarnatakaV I M A L A R A M A C H A N D R A N 17

INDIA has witnessed a huge expansion in demand for education at all levels. More importantly, people’s aspirations regarding education have also changed enormously. At one level, it seems India is poised for a take off. Yet, many characteristics of the system remain unchanged – children continue to drop out or opt out of schools, teaching learning quality is abysmal, classroom practices have changed little and the debate at higher echelons continues to be dominated by writing and re-writing history or some other politically topical aspect of curriculum. Yes, a change seems to be in the air. But there is also an undercurrent of unchanging turf battles over curriculum and textbooks – and children continue to be deprived of opportunities to learn inside a poorly functioning government school system. The “system” itself is rarely challenged as successive governments and their supporters continue to focus on soft issues.

It is in this context that the entry of new players in the elementary education sector comes as a whiff of fresh air. Interventions in the social sector have, hitherto, been seen as the exclusive domain of the government and, at best, a few non-government players who are seen as being on the same side of the ideological fence. While most stakeholders acknowledge the need to create space for non-state actors in the field of education, the space for people and organizations outside the voluntary sector was highly restricted. The private sector in education was confined to running “for-profit” schools. The last five to eight years has witnessed the entry of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives in the social sector. The corporate partners bring to the table valuable strengths in terms of managerial expertise, an organized manner of dealing with HRD issues, enhancing motivation levels and working in teams to achieve stated objectives. The Government of India and some state governments, today, recognize the merit of harnessing more support for quality improvement through public-private partnerships. The Learning Guarantee Program (LGP) was a product of similar new generation partnerships.

Key Features of LGPThe Azim Premji Foundation, in collaboration with the Government of Karnataka, initiated the LGP in 2002. According to the foundation “one of the key objectives of the program is to create a spirit of accountability among schools and education functionaries for the learning of every child. The other key objective is to advocate a systemic shift in assessment - from the traditional test of rote learning to test of a child’s understanding, application and problem-solving ability.18”

17 Ms Naitra Muralykrishnan assisted in the preparation of this case study.18 S.Giridhar, D.D Karopady and Umashanker Periodi: Assessment reforms through voluntary participation of schools: Experience fro Learning Guarantee Programme, APF, Bangalore March 2006.


The program did not start off as a “model” but has evolved over the last four years. As a first step, the Foundation initiated a discussion with the government in the firm belief that sustainability of any intervention could be assured only if the two worked as partners. To this end, the Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Government of Karnataka on June 12, 2001 spelling out the respective roles, responsibilities and commitments.

Having decided to work in partnership with the government, the next crucial decision was where the educational initiatives would be focused. Generally, a major concern in piloting totally new innovations and strategies is to ensure a modicum of success and, therefore, sites with a high probability of achieving success are selected for piloting. The Foundation decided to take the bull by its horns as it were and decided to work in the most backward region, i.e. North Eastern Karnataka, which represents on-third of the geographical area and a quarter of the population of the state. This region, which comprises the seven districts of Gulbarga, Yadgir, Bidar, Raichur, Koppal, Bellary, Bijapur and Bagalkote, is economically and educationally backward. The geography, climate, poor resources and historical backwardness all conspire to keep this region that was a part of the erstwhile Nizam’s territory in a continued state of underdevelopment. More importantly close to 51% of all out- of-school children in the state were from these districts.

Box VIII: Key Elements of the LGP ProgramVoluntary participation of schools – a signal of preparedness for accountability.Assessing understanding and application of knowledge versus traditional rote / memory-based examination.Credible and transparent evaluation.Recognition for performance.Research and analysis of factors that help or hinder performance.Feedback for improvement to every school. Assessment results to guide reforms in classroom practices and culture.

Source: APF, March 2006.

The idea of the program was fairly straightforward. As spelt out in the box above, schools were invited to participate in a process that would start with testing the learning levels of children and also ascertaining their enrolment and regular participation in the school. The participating school had to agree to external evaluation and assessment. Schools were given a choice of when to be evaluated during the project period. They could decide if they wanted or did not want to be evaluated every year. This had to be indicated in the application form, which needed to be countersigned by the Headmaster and the SDMC Chairperson along with the names and signatures of other members of the SDMC. Once the Foundation was satisfied that all the criteria had been met, it gave a certificate of participation to the school

The main thrust of the testing process was on concepts and skills and special efforts were made to move away from a rote learning and mechanical recall. The testing itself was to be organized by an independent professional team. As Giridhar et al explain: “There is more than general consensus that the present education system is examination driven and this impacts all classes from Board Examination downwards.


Moreover, the examinations are essentially content based that largely test the child’s capacity to memorize text and recall without the need to test her understanding or application of concepts… Thus, a child may be able to answer pre-defined questions at the end of each lesson in the textbook without understanding what it means or without being able to apply the same knowledge in another situation… Further, what gets tested in the examination system also gets focus and attention in the classroom practices… Therefore, one approach is to reform the examination system so that a student’s understanding, application, problem-solving and analytical ability is tested and not merely memorized content. There are high chances that the teacher learning processes will also move in sync with this direction.” (Giridhar et al, 2006)

One of the noteworthy aspects of the program was that the conventional quality improvement inputs like training of teachers, production of teaching and learning material and other in-school inputs continued to be the responsibility of the government. The LGP program was about enthusing and energizing the school system through an open process of testing and rewarding. Right from the start the Foundation was fairly clear that they did would not duplicate the core responsibility of the government school system.

The program worked with four key stakeholders: the educational administration in the district and block, the teachers, the community (through the SEC / SDMC) and the children. The latter three were rewarded through public recognition and prizes in cash (for the school) and in kind for the children and teachers. Schools, communities and teachers were selected on the basis of publicized criteria for a learning guarantee school. The criteria were identified to fulfil both equity and quality parameters. For example, no school could claim to be a learning guarantee school unless every single child in the catchment area of the school was enrolled and children attended regularly.

Table 9: Criteria for a “Learning Guarantee” schoolCriteria Category A Category B Category C

Enrolment 100% of children in the 6-14 age group

Attendance 90% of the enrolled to have attended at least 75% of total number of working days in school

Learning 80% of all children enrolled in classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 should score 90% on competency-based tests.

70% of all children enrolled in classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 should score 90% on competency-based tests.

60% of all children enrolled in classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 should score 90% on competency-based tests.

Source: APF, 2006

The implementation process also evolved as the program took root. Looking back, the key players delineated the following process:

Step 1: Communication about the program to schools, community members and education functionaries – through the Foundation staff, a media agency and partners in the government.

Step 2: Evolving evaluation tools with inputs and advice from a panel of national experts.


Step 3: Schools volunteer to participate in the program and are explained, in advance, on the way they will be evaluated.

Step 4: Training of identified, independent evaluators to evaluate schools and children for expected learning outcomes (both written and oral).

Step 5: Analysis of evaluation and announcement of results.

Step 6: Feedback to every school on their results, including handing over the assessment papers.

The LGP program was started as a time-bound initiative. The idea was to nurture it and manage it for three years, use it as a pilot to see whether such an approach would work and, more importantly, fine tune the testing mechanisms. At the outset (in 2002) 9000 schools in North East Karnataka were informed about the program through school visits by a media / communications group and through local newspapers and radio. Headmasters were personally contacted, and given a flier on the program and requested to consider participating. Meetings with SDMC, youth groups and other community groups, to whom the program was explained and who were requested to assist the HM in deciding to participate, followed this. The support of all the Block Education Officers, Cluster Resource Coordinators and Block Resource Coordinators was also sought with the expectation that they would encourage participation by schools during the course of their regular interactions with HMs and schools.

Discussions with key players in 2003 were quite revealing. A whopping 70 % of the schools - 6484 out of the 9203 - sent in their requests for the prospectus! This made everyone sit up to the fact that even schools and teachers were keen to look at learning outcomes - the awards offered certainly making it all the more attractive19. The fact that there would be no screening and that participation was not contingent on the status of current learning levels may have spurred such a huge response Perhaps, the program was on the right course after all despite some misgivings voiced during the designing of the program. Three years later a district level official echoed the same amazement.

After four to five months of intensive work, 1889 schools confirmed their participation – opting to be tested at different points of time. The pilot phase that started in November 2002 concluded in December 2005. Towards the end of 2005, the state government announced that this process would be upscaled to the entire state and that the government would take this forward henceforth. This was an important milestone for the Foundation as well as the government. If we scan the history of NGO-government collaboration in the country – this was an uncommon occurrence. Way back in 1987, the Government of Rajasthan had introduced the Shiksha Karmi Program on a model tried out in the NGO sector. The Tamil Nadu government also took the TINIP pilot to scale.

The process of launching the program is captured in the time-line below.

19 Interview with Mr.Giridhar, Coordinator, Research and Advocacy, 10.7.03


Table 10: Timeline of the Learning Guarantee Program2002November Learning Guarantee Program launched at Gulbarga.

9000 schools of North East Karnataka informed about LGP.2003January Applications received from 6484 schools.

List of schools published in newspaper.“Gothenri” (Handbook on the LGP evaluation process, inclusive of sample question paper for interested schools to do a self assessment, formats for documenting the results of self assessment and details about the school) mailed to the 6484 schools.

March 1889 schools confirmed their participation. Schools were given a choice of being evaluated in all 3 years (2003-05 or 2004-05 or 2005 only). Consequently, 896 schools opted for evaluation in 2003-05, 547 chose 2004 and 05, 446 chose 2005. i.e. 896 schools: 2003; 1443 schools: 2004; 1889 schools: 2005

April Planning under way for-School evaluation Development of process manual for evaluationFinalization of evaluators Recruitment of volunteers required for the evaluation processTraining of evaluators, team leaders and area coordinatorsSchedule for school evaluation Developing software for data processing and analysis.Posters, wall paintings etc sent to schools to motivate the school and community.

May Certificates of appreciation sent to all participating schools.265 evaluators recruited.

June Training of evaluators at MYRADA, Gulbarga.July Additional 420 evaluators recruited.

Evaluation of participating schools beginsAugust Training of a new batch of evaluators.October Evaluation of all 896 Schools completed. November-December Data entry and processing.

Prof. Dean Karlan of Princeton University directed a research to study through his research student why schools participated or did not participate in the LGP.

February 2004- April 20052004February LGP award function at GulbargaMarch 30-minute film on LGP featuring best practices of successful

schools made.Research undertaken to understand the factors that differentiated the winning schools.School performance reports shared with the CRCs of eight districts.CRCs were given the individual school reports to be given to their schools.

April CRCs distribute school feedback report to the 896 schoolsLGP film screened at all 1889 participating school habitations


April to JuneProcesses such as evaluation of schools and school scheduling simplified.

May Recruitment of evaluators at blocks. 260 old evaluators retained, 200 fresh evaluators selected on the basis of tests and interviewsData processing: Manual data entry eliminated and ICR formats for scanning introduced.

July Evaluator’s training at MYRADA.Evaluation of 1443 Schools commenced – completed in September

October Data processing and analysis carried out.December LGP award function at Bellary2005January School feedback report made user friendly and presented to all

CRCs. Reports distributed to schools by CRCs.

February Volunteers visited 1443 schools to assess the school’s use of the feedback reports and the CRC’s contribution to preparation of school action plan.

April Schedule for evaluation of 1889 schools prepared. May 2005-January 2006

2005May Dissemination of the research findings and performance analysis in

the eight districts with the purpose of motivating blocks to develop their specific action plans for improved performance during the next round of evaluation.Researches undertaken with an objective of understanding -

the effectiveness of the film on community and parent perceptions. the interest / participation levels of CRCs the difference in learning levels of participating and non-participating schools 460 volunteers for next round of evaluations recruited.

June Decentralized training of evaluators. July Evaluation process of 1889 schools begins. Completed SeptemberOctober Data processing and analysis carried out.December LGP award function held at the district level.

It was attended by all the participating schools and approx. 7000 teachers and SDMCs.Books for school libraries gifted to participating schools as tokens of appreciation. School feedback report distributed to the Head Teacher of every school at the award function.

Government decides to expand and upscale!2004April The government decides to expand program.

Conducts communication program in each of the four divisions The DSERT made in charge of LGP expansion.

June Training of 100 master trainers from 20 DIETS.List of 32 participating schools sent by every BEO to the DSERT

December The government commits funds for expansion and implementation begins.Government functionaries recruited as evaluators and trained by 100 master resource persons.

2005


January Evaluation of 6462 Schools carried out by government functionaries. (32 schools per block across 202 blocks)

May 800 schools from the pool of 6462 schools were short listed August - October APF volunteers and government functionaries together evaluate

these 800 schools. 2006January Announcement and communication of results to the education

department.

Assessment – the Pivot of LGPAssessment has always been a contentious issue - both teachers and administrators are anxious about it as it has the potential of “exposing” the real picture. At the same time assessment of learning outcomes is emerging as one of the key elements in monitoring quality. It is in this context that the LGP strategy of communication is interesting:

First, the concept of the LGP program was communicated to all the schools in North East Karnataka. Advertisements were issued in papers and on radio. At the same time meetings were organized with SDMC and panchayat members. Communicating the concept directly to the main actors was important – especially in an environment where important decisions are just sent down through impersonal government orders. The objective was to strike the curiosity of the teacher and the community.

Second, the names of the participating schools were publicized, thereby putting them in the spotlight. Having signed up to be a part of the LGP pilot phase, the schools were asked when they would like to be tested. Preliminary learning assessment was done and this was shared with the schools as well as the SDMC. The schools were, thus, made aware of the levels of learning.

Third, at the end of the first year (similarly the second and third years), an independent team visited the schools and the village community to get authentic information on enrolment, regularity of attendance and the learning levels of children. Again this was compiled school-wise and shared not only with the school but also with the supervisory structure. Taluka-wise data was compiled and disseminated at different levels. The winning schools were awarded in a public function. Information about the performance of schools received wide publicity. On the flip side – the schools that had enrolled in the program but had not made a mark also came into the spotlight – with many of them spurred to ensure better performance next year.

Fourth, feedback on individual performance of a child in evaluation was communicated to the school so that teachers could recognize the child’s weak areas and also monitor his/her progress over a period of time.

Fifth, the progress of the LGP program was constantly in the public domain. This not only established the credibility of the testing mechanism, but also kept up the pressure on all the players – participating schools, the supervisory mechanism and the APF.

This has led to introspection among stakeholders within the government and outside. A host of new generation issues are now being debated. There is a realization that the factors that inhibit effective learning in schools may have more to do with broader systemic and governance issues like teacher absenteeism, pre-class preparedness, actual teaching time (time on task), assessment processes and overall monitoring mechanisms. Equally, the inability of our schools to give attention to every child has dominated the discourse on quality education. The larger system now recognizes that


learning is an individual struggle / process for every child. The ability of teachers (and the administrative system governing schools) to recognize this and reach out to every single child would make a big difference – as is evident in the lessons of the LGP programme in Karnataka.

Box IX: Reaching out to every child!Discussing how they were able to improve learning levels among children in the “winning schools” of the Learning Guarantee Programme initiated by the Azim Premji Foundation in North-east Karnataka, the teachers said that they were introduced to new techniques in DPEP and were encouraged to develop teaching-learning material. They made a lot of interesting charts and cut outs and hung them on the wall. The pictures of the Nalikali schools in HD Kote of Mysore district inspired many teachers. Unfortunately, the reality was this material above a child’s gaze, remained unused. Teaching continued in the same old manner. However, once they were expected to ensure that every single child achieves grade specific learning levels under the LGP programme, many went back to the TLMs made under DPEP. Earlier TLMs were seen as decorations in the classroom but when -teachers were motivated enough to reach out to every single child they “rediscovered” the material they had prepared and also realised the usefulness of TLM in helping children learn on their own or in small groups.This sentiment was echoed by the officials we met in Bellary. One of them said, “The LGP programme did not organise additional training or produce material – essentially made us look inwards and use the skills and the knowledge we already have. Reaching out to every child means that the teacher not only has to teach the ‘group’ but has to find ways and means to help every individual child learn. Working in small groups, producing and using appropriate self-learning materials alongside a range of non-curricular activities have helped the winning schools to demonstrate that it is indeed possible to ensure every child learns.”

Source: Vimala Ramachandran, LGP Programme field notes January 2006

Assessment Leads to Improved Teaching-Learning PracticesDuring discussions with teachers on the replicability of the LGP, they said the program had provided them with an insight on certain non-negotiables, which guaranteed ‘learning’ among children and led to an improvement in their learning levels. They said they realized the key to make ‘learning in schools’ sustainable was in preparing lesson plans, discussing them with co-teachers and implementing them, pre-class preparedness, identifying gaps in student’s learning levels and working with them in groups to provide remedial teaching and maintaining a record of the progress of each child. They said the continuous support of the SDMC, community participation and motivation of government functionaries were essential to enthuse both the teachers and children. They also brought to our notice the efforts of the BRCs and CRCs to make non-winning schools also winning. These included taking the latter on a guided tour of winning schools to observe their teaching practices and a constant supply of innovative thoughts and suggestions on improving teaching practices.

When teachers were asked their opinion on the program sans the Azim Premji Foundation, the teachers said that they were ready to take up the program and were truly motivated to bring about a revolutionary change in their teaching and evaluating practices. They were confident that their schools would guarantee ‘learning’ in the times to come and the program would continue in the future.

Thus, the Foundation has been able to bring to centre-stage the importance of initiating a systemic change in Karnataka’s education sector by influencing key stakeholders such as the BRCs, CRCs, SDMC and teachers. Instead of beginning with policy level


changes that do little for any significant alterations within the classroom, the efforts were primarily targeted at changing classroom practices that, over the years. have grown into tangible systemic changes. The Learning Guarantee Program has brought vigour into the school environment that has made both ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’ joyful experiences.

Making Assessment Child-friendlyThe key attraction of the LGP is their vision of creating a child-friendly environment in the participating schools, especially during evaluation. The attempt is to do away with the ‘fear of examination’. Prior to the evaluation process, the evaluators undergo a training which focuses on using child-friendly evaluation practices in school. Firstly, APF insists on evaluators spending some time to ‘interact’ with the children. They strive to prevent a scenario where children would feel that ‘outsiders’ had visited their schools and conducted an examination.

Secondly, the LGP evaluation pattern includes the use of competency-based question papers that evaluate children on both written and the oral abilities. Unlike in the traditional evaluation system, the competency-based question paper assesses the child’s competency to apply learning and not his/her ability to merely ‘recollect information’. The rationale for oral examinations is that if a question were straightforward, it is not necessary to tax children by making them ‘write’ the answers. Oral exams are also especially significant in the context of young children of ages 5 and 6 where their writing skills may not necessarily be well developed. Here, the oral exam also reveals that children who are unable to write the answers (who in the traditional exam system would have failed) but can answer the oral section successfully do, indeed, have the ‘learning’ but haven’t acquired the competency to write. Therefore, the exam pattern itself is pro-assessment - of children’s different competencies - and reflects on their weak areas as also their strengths. This gets recorded in the individual child’s feedback and is given to the schools. Also, several picture-based questions (which are region specific) are included which make the evaluation interesting and child friendly on the one hand, and tests the child’s competency to identify pictures and his/her knowledge of the environment on the other.

Finally, the question paper also includes several short stories that need to be read out in the class. Questions are asked based on these stories. Evaluators are told to make this story narration a truly joyous process for the children. It is, therefore, hoped that if the question paper is child friendly, the approach to evaluating would, probably, not intimidate the children.

Understanding the Texture: the Program in Kudligi taluk of Bellary districtDuring a brief field visit to the LGP program in Bellary, we asked the APF functionaries the key highlights of their relationship with the government. They said that APF consciously involved the State Directorate of Education and other functionaries in the school education system in the implementation process. They also made sure that the School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC) was in the picture at all times.

We posed a similar question to some of the important government functionaries in the district. Mr Jatti, an official who was closely associated with the program since its


inception, spoke of it as one that belonged equally to the government. Describing the launch of the program in 2002, he recalled: “There was some reluctance when we introduced the program to the teachers and BRC and CRC. We encouraged the teachers and told them to not approach this with prejudice. We worked closely with CRP, BRP and BRP-C and Education Coordinators and motivated the field functionaries after which they started fixing dates for CRC-level meetings. We explained the program to HMs in these meetings. We had to convince them as voluntary participation was the key. There was chaos in the meeting when we talked about testing… it took time to convince them. We also sent postcards to all the schools and tried hard to bridge the wide communication gaps between taluka administration and the schools. Out of 268 schools, 240 asked for applications and only 140 completed all the formalities. We did not reject any school. APF visited the block and scrutinized the applications. The number of applications from Kudligi was higher than from other blocks and I believe that participation is more important than winning.20”

While the Foundation had its own strategy to communicate the concept to the headmasters and other stakeholders, taluka and district level officials also did their bit to get the program off the ground. The Kudligi taluk officials wrote letters to all the schools. They conducted meetings at the BRC level to explain how the learning levels of children could be improved. Mr Jatti said that they organized meetings every Saturday and invited headmasters, teachers and SDMC presidents of seven to 10 schools. Their forum was used to discuss how the learning levels and regularity of all children could be improved. The school meetings were held regularly in the first year of the program. Interestingly, all the participants took oaths in the meeting and efforts were made to not only encourage each other but also learn from each other, Mr Jatti said. Six Kudligi schools received the award in the first year. This award function was followed up with block level and cluster level functions and teachers for other participating schools were encouraged to visit the winning schools.

The second year of the program also started with letters to SDMC members and also to the children of the participating schools. The focus was on ensuring regular attendance of all children. Simultaneously, the importance of paying attention to every single child was discussed with the teachers. Mr Jatti recalled that: “When nine schools won and got incentives in the second year, all the winning schools SDMC members and teachers went to the award function together in the bus. We also organized an event where the winning schools shared their strategies. Some highly motivated teachers and SDMC presidents went to other participating schools to talk about their experience.”

The third year started with preparation of action plans. The taluka team prepared separate action plans for the 17 schools that had the potential to win and for the other schools that were “lagging behind”. These plans were prepared by a group consisting of functionaries of APF, CRPs and SDMC representatives. Apparently, the SDMC from some villages asked the administration to remove teachers who were coming late. This was followed by a signal from Mr Jatti that salaries of the teachers coming late or not spending adequate time in the school could be withheld. However, given the prevailing administrative system this could not have been done. The teachers were also assured of full academic support from the BRC and CRC.

District officials and headmasters said that the performance of Kudligi taluk was special, partly because of the enthusiasm of key officials. The result speaks for itself –

20 Interview with Mr Jatti, Bellary, January 25, 2006


five of the 10 school in 2005 demonstrated complete success with 100% achievement on all three parameters – enrolment, attendance and learning achievement.

Box 10: Experience in a “winning school”I was sitting in one corner of a classroom where a single lady teacher was taking class 1 (12 children) and class 2 (5 children). The children were sitting in two groups facing a blackboard, which was divided into two halves, one for each class. The teacher was taking a lesson on ‘Gandhiji’ for class 2 while, the class 1 students were assigned the task of writing the alphabet on their slates. During the lesson, the teacher asked a class 2 student Gandhiji’s full name. As he couldn’t answer the question, it was passed to the next student who promptly answered it. Following this, the first student was asked the question again and then asked to write the answer on the board. Next, the teacher asked another student Gandhiji’s popular names. Question answered, the student was asked to write these names on the board. Thus, through a round of questions and answers, the teacher taught the lesson to the students and key words were being written simultaneously on one half of the blackboard. The teacher then asked students from both classes to stand up and taught them a song on Gandhiji. On the one hand, it detailed his life and struggle for the country which added to the lesson in class 2 and at the same time, it spoke of his ambidextrous ability through which the teacher taught class 1 the concept of ‘right and ‘left’ through actions. Thus, the activity was made relevant for both the classes and it was carried out as a group activity. After the song, the teacher asked the class 2 students to use the keywords on the blackboard and write a paragraph on the lesson in their notebooks. Meanwhile, she checked the work the students of class 1. Next, she drew the outline of an earthen pot on the blank half of the board and asked the class 1 students to join the alphabets on their slate and write the words thus formed inside the pot until the pot was filled to its brim. As class 1 students went up to the board and completed their task, the teacher corrected the notebooks of class 2. I was amazed at the teacher’s command over both classes; her ability to keep them continuously occupied in the class work which included innovative activities where both classes could participate. Most importantly, the teaching, I observed, reflected on the teacher’s pre-class preparedness and her ability to make optimum use of her teaching time a multi-grade teaching set up.

Source: Field notes of Naitra Muralykrishnan, January 2006

Scaling up LGP - Reflections and ConcernsDiscussions with people involved in the LGP program in Bellary revealed that the actual improvement in learning levels was made possible through a well-organized system of feedback on the performance of every child and of each school. These feedback forms were filled with care and handed over to the head teachers concerned. The winning schools we visited used the feedback form quite effectively. But we were also told that many schools did not look at the forms.

The big issue, therefore, is whether the same rigor will go into the feedback process when the government scales up LGP to the entire state.

Preliminary discussions on the new government initiative called the Karnataka State Quality Assessment Organization (KSQAO) reveal that all the schools have been administered the tests – the voluntary program is now mandatory. Equally, classes 5 and 7 will be tested and in some schools, class 2 would also be tested in four schools in each cluster. The teachers admitted that they “worked” intensively on the students who were to take the test while the other children were left to their own devices in this period.


The success of the LGP pilot could be attributed to the care taken in testing and feedback. Now that all schools are mandated to participate in quality testing, the big question is whether the government will take the same care to correct the test papers and give feedback on each child and school. It may be early to say it won’t, but preliminary feedback reveals it may not.

Another important factor that contributed to the success of the LGP program was the credibility of the testing mechanism. An independent team of evaluators went around the participating schools and made the testing process both rigorous as well as above board. In the KSQAO, existing teachers, D. Ed and B. Ed students are involved in the testing. While the KSQAO is an autonomous organization within the government, it may be premature to say whether it is truly independent and if they will take the same care that went into LGP testing. This is a big issue in almost all the states because state governments are under pressure to show that they are doing well and that quality is improving. The process could be manipulated to “show” results, something similar to what happened with data on enrolment for over four decades.

Lastly, the annual awards for recognition played a big role in motivating the teachers, school committees and also the children. Indications are that they may have to be satisfied only with certificates instead of prizes. Whether this will affect motivation levels is difficult to say at this point in time.

Another big concern is that the academic support structure of the government is not fully geared to support the schools to improve the learning levels of children. Even in the pilot phase, the teachers of the participating schools had to depend on CRCs and BRCs for academic support. Over the years these bodies have become data-gathering institutions and teachers admit that the resource persons do not respond to the problems faced by teachers in the classroom. Training programs are designed around pre-determined “hard spots”.

While the LGP pilot is certainly an important innovation in quality improvement, it remains to be seen whether when taken to scale not only in Karnataka but in other parts of the country whether the spirit of the initiative will be nurtured with the same care and rigor.


Case Study VII

7. Combining Deeni Taleem and Duniyavi Taleem: Madarsa Education in Madhya Pradesh21

D R S H O B H I T A R A J A G O P A L 22

IntroductionTHE National Policy on Education, 1986 (NPE) accorded priority to equity concerns in terms of ensuring quality education to children from socially disadvantaged and educationally deprived groups. Many innovative programs have been implemented across states in the decades following the NPE, both within the government and non-government sectors to achieve the goals of universalization of elementary education (UEE). However, despite considerable progress made towards achieving these goals, a large number of children from the marginalized groups and minority communities continue to be out of formal schooling for various reasons.

The under-representation of Muslims, India’s largest religious minority, in education has been an issue of intensive debate. The educational status of Muslims is, probably, the lowest compared to other major religious communities in India. As per Census 2001, the literacy rate amongst the Muslims was recorded at 59.1 per cent against the overall literacy rate of 65 per cent (AKF, 2005). The differential in educational attainment between Muslim children and other children becomes much wider when the proportion of students completing upper primary and secondary levels of schooling is taken into account. A large proportion of Muslim children are reported to be attending school only occasionally. The dropout rate is also said to be relatively higher among them. Many children (especially boys) join work at an early age. The reasons for their educational backwardness are mostly attributed to religious orthodoxy, socio-economic conditions, poverty, cultural isolation and resistance to change. It is apparent that they have not taken to secular education in a big way even in the past decade, when there has been considerable expansion of school facilities and significant increase in enrolment in the country (Jha and Jhingran, 2005). This situation poses a challenge to achieving the goals of UEE and makes evident a strong need for making education more accessible to children from these communities. Several voices, from within the Muslim community, have called for improving the educational standards of their children and for introducing reforms in the traditional institutions of learning i.e. the madarsas.

In 1993, the Government of India (GOI) launched a scheme to modernize madarsa education following a series of meetings with the representatives of the madarsas. The scheme promised financial assistance to the Madarsas for teaching of science, mathematics and social science and language, sans interference or compulsion from the government. Taking a cue from the GOI scheme, the Government of Madhya Pradesh (GoMP) also initiated a scheme to modernize the Madarsas in the state in 1996.

21 Case Study prepared for the ILO-supported ERU study on ‘Best practices with respect to systemic intervention programs and practices that seek to strengthen the public education system with special attention to children at risk.’22 I am grateful to Farooque Siddiqui Assistant Manager (Access), RSK, Bhopal, for facilitating my visit to the districts and the extensive support extended during the field visit.


The present case study attempts to capture the efforts made by the Government of Madhya Pradesh for mainstreaming madarsa education and reaching out to non-school going children enrolled in Madarsas. The study is based on field visits and discussions held in 14 Madarsas across three districts in MP – Burhanpur, Khandwa and Indore which have a substantial Muslim population. The number of Madarsas functioning in these districts is 170, 189 and 167 respectively. We spoke with various stakeholders - madarsa management functionaries, teachers, children, parents and government functionaries at the state and district levels.

Madarsa Education: The ConceptMadarsas are traditional centres of religious teaching and learning wherein Muslim children are imparted Deeni Taleem (religious education) with a focus on learning the Holy Koran and basics of the faith. Recent estimates point out that there are close to 30,000-40,000 madarsas in the country. These can be classified into three categories:

Maktabs impart religious education up to the primary level

Madarsa impart religious curriculum up to the secondary level

Jamia are institutes of higher learning.

Evidently, madarsas are the only source of education for children of many poor Muslim families. Supported by endowments and community money, they offer very low-cost education, since they charge no fees. The residential Madarsas also provide free board and lodging to their students.

Madarsas are usually affiliated to religious societies and trusts. In some states Madarsas are registered with the State Madarsa Boards and receive support/grant-in-aid from central and state governments. Every madarsa follows its own curriculum. Neither is there uniformity in the number of years for preparing students for various degrees (Khan et.al, 2004). The languages of instruction include Urdu, Arabic, Persian, local and vernacular.

It is argued that those accessing Madarsa education do so for the following reasons:

Preparation of children in religious instruction at the primary stage

Lack of access to Urdu medium instruction in state formal schools

Aspiration to become religious functionaries (clerics) (Ahmed, I as quoted in AKF Report 2005)

The ContextMadhya Pradesh was geographically the biggest state till 1999. In 2000, the state was divided into MP and Chhattisgarh. According to Census report, the Muslim population in the 48 districts of MP was recorded at 60,348,023 - 6.3 per cent of the total population of the state.

In the past decade, Madhya Pradesh has benefited from a series of initiatives founded on decentralized governance of elementary education. It is one of the earliest beneficiaries of the District Primary Education Project (DPEP), which was introduced in the state in 1994. The combined effect of initiatives such as the Alternative School Program (1994), Seekhna Sikhana (1996) and Education Guarantee Scheme (1997) etc is evident in the literacy rates that increased by 20 percentage points between 1991-2001. Enrolment levels also show a steady rise.


Mainstreaming Madarsa Education: The BeginningAs part of the educational reforms carried out in the state, the initiative on Modernization of Madarsa (MOM) began in 1996 under the aegis of the DPEP. Traditional institutions like Madarsas and maktabs imparting religious education were seen as partners in helping with education of out-of-school children. The primary objective of the intervention was to mainstream these children into formal education by introducing a ‘modern’ curriculum in Madarsas.

The government felt that introducing ‘modern curriculum’ in the Madarsa would enable children from poor households, especially girls, to learn subjects like English, Hindi, Social Science and Mathematics. Both the Madarsa managements as well as parents of the girls who were getting only religious education welcomed the move. About 1200 girls benefited from this project in the pilot phase and were able to continue their education in schools after class 5. The scheme was gradually expanded to 14 Madarsas and has, since, covered more than 4000 Madarsas in 2004-05.

Present Status The MOM scheme, like all other educational initiatives, is today part of the SSA. While the Madarsas continue to provide religious education, they have also incorporated the formal state curriculum for transaction in Hindi, English, Urdu, Environmental Science (EVS), Social Science, Mathematics and Science at the primary and upper primary levels. As many as 2,41,085 children (1,44,651 girls and 96,434 boys) have been enrolled in the Madarsas with girls constituting 60 per cent of the total number.

Management and Implementation The Rajya Shiksha Kendra (RSK), the nodal agency for implementing the SSA, implements the MOM initiative in the state. It is based on a tripartite partnership between the RSK, the MP Madarsa Board and the Madarsas implementing the program. The RSK absorbs the cost of academic assistance in the form of teachers’ training (maximum two teachers per Madarsa), free textbooks to all non-school going children, school grant to purchase basic teaching aids for the classes and teachers' grant (maximum two teachers per Madarsa) to prepare teaching aids for the better classroom transaction. The Kendra also takes care of monitoring and supervision.

The MP Madarsa Board was established in September 1998 by the GoMP School Education Department to give an impetus to education among educationally backward minorities and for universalizing elementary education. The board is responsible for registration and recognition of seminaries, conducting various examinations in mainstream as well Islamic courses, monitoring the implementation of central and state projects and coordinating the distribution of free textbooks for children studying in the Madarsas. But its specific objective is to mainstream children receiving religious education in Madarsas into ‘modern education’ (Annual Report, MP, Madarsa Board, 2005).

Currently, only those madarasas which are willing to introduce modern curriculum are registered with the board. The main criterion for registration is that they should have out-of-school children receiving only religious education.


Table 11: Budget for the Modernisation of Madarsa Scheme

Interventions Unit Cost Total Budget for 4017 Madarsa

Free Text Books Rs 2500/- 100,42,500.00

20 days teachers training Rs 1400/- (Maximum 2 Madarsa teachers) 112,47,600.00

School Grant Rs 2000/- 80,34,222.00

Teachers Grant Rs 500/- (Maximum 2 Madarsa teachers) 40,17,000.00

Total 333,41,322.00

Source: Rajya Shiksha Kendra, Bhopal, 2005

Key Elements and Strategies The principal objective of the MOM initiative is to make formal education accessible to non-school going children attending Madarsas. The intervention employs the following strategies to realize this objective: training of teachers, distribution of textbooks and preparation of prototype teaching learning materials, and helping with school and teachers’ grants (started in the year 2005-2006).

Teachers’ Training

The 38 DIETs in the state organize teachers’ training every year as envisaged in the initiative. Every Madarsa is expected to send two teachers to the 20-day training which focuses on developing skills of the teachers for various subjects. Special training modules have been designed in Urdu for EVS and social science. The modules are based on the need, approach and content. They are child centred, and ensure activity-based teaching and joyful learning.

The training uses the cascade mode where training is handed down from the state to the district and then, to the block level teachers. In 2004-05, 5784 teachers were trained in 4,472 Madarsas. Trainees could have done their intermediate or graduated in Islamic studies. Most of the teachers are untrained and do not have the experience of teaching the ‘modern’ subjects.

Discussions with the teachers in various Madarsas revealed that the training had aided them with ‘new’ and ‘simple’ ways of teaching children. It had also helped them clear their own doubts. They had prepared teaching aids and learning material during the training keeping in mind the holistic development of child. Some teachers also admitted that they were not able to apply these new methods in the classroom while some others lamented the paucity of women trainers.

Distribution of Textbooks

Free distribution of textbooks to all children is a crucial aspect of the MOM initiative. The textbooks (English, Hindi, Mathematics, Urdu, Social Science and EVS) are distributed to the Madarsas through the Zilla Shiksha Kendra and District Project Coordinators. The books are done both in Hindi and Urdu. While Urdu is taught as a subject, textbooks for EVS (primary level) and Social Science (upper primary) are in


Urdu medium. The books for Mathematics (at both levels) as well as Science (at upper primary level) are in Hindi.

Even though the very process of distribution is fraught with hitches, the number of children who have benefited from the textbooks has grown from 43,110 in 2001-02 to 1, 77,000 in 2004-05.

Some Madarsa functionaries complained about delays in the distribution of textbooks. Many of them said they had received the books in Hindi instead of Urdu. Some had not even bothered to collect the books because they were in Hindi. While the functionaries said that both the teachers and students found Hindi books difficult, RSK and district officials argued the teachers saw it as an additional burden to teach the subjects in Hindi. They were unable to cope and received no incentives for teaching the other subjects.

Grant for Schools and Teachers

A school grant of Rs 2000 (per year) and a teachers’ grant of Rs 500 for two teachers per Madarsa has been introduced in 2005-06. The school grant has been given to all the 4017 Madarsas in the state to purchase basic aids/facilities like blackboard, chalk and charts. The teachers’ grant has been given so teachers can prepare teaching aids to promote better classroom transaction.

Program Review, Monitoring and FeedbackDrawing on the DPEP experience, the RSK has chalked out a detailed internal review and monitoring mechanism for the SSA. Field-based monitoring of the Madarsas forms a part SSA monitoring and is carried out through the School Improvement Plan (SIP) with the participation of the Madarsa Committee, Urdu In-charge, the Parent Teacher Association and cluster/block/district level functionaries. The monitoring takes place through monitors identified at different levels.

The state formulated the SIP which focuses on improving quality in elementary education. The SIP is responsible for adoption of Madarsas and intensive visits to them. Detailed monitoring formats have been drawn for the SIP and it is expected to ensure that all agencies (i.e Zilla Shiksha Kendra, DIET, JPSK and JSK) will work towards improving the achievement levels of children.

Although reporting and feedback mechanisms are in place at the state, district and block levels, discussions revealed that monitoring was weak in the Madarsas because of a bias among government functionaries. Many monitors hesitated in visiting the Madarsas because of the feeling that they being religious institutions would not take kindly to monitoring. This, in effect, translated into poor monitoring on academic and qualitative aspects of teaching and learning. The involvement of the members of the Madarsa Board appeared non-existent in the exercise.

Teaching and Learning EnvironmentWe visited small and large Madarsas, in both rural and urban areas, during the course of the study. A majority of the smaller Madarsas had poor infrastructure and functioned out of a couple of rented rooms which were cramped and poorly ventilated. Several classes were grouped together in one room. Only the larger, well-endowed Madarsas had their own buildings, with some open space. The Madarsas in the urban


slum areas were particularly wanting in terms classroom space, drinking water facilities and toilets. The external environment was not conducive to learning and there was no space for children to play. They sat primarily on floor mats or durries.

A Madarsa in Indore was housed in a tin shed which doubled up as the ‘residence’ for the family of the madarsa coordinator. An all-boys residential madarsa in Khandwa had lots of open space, separate room for every class, and accommodation facilities for 250 boys.

Classroom Interaction and ProcessesA majority of the Madarsas functioned like a formal school and some even charged a nominal fee. Children attended classes in shifts. Every subject period was of 35 minutes and the time table included religious education.

Classroom interaction between the teacher and the students was limited, with the teacher being the primary player. The teachers rarely used TLM or innovative methods to make learning more interesting for children. In fact, it was evident that many of them needed more inputs in the various subjects. Children came across as confident and vocal in some places and silent and shy in some others. Hindi and Mathematics clearly emerged as subjects in which they needed greater inputs. However, every Madarsa reported that the children did well in the examinations. Those who had cleared the upper primary levels in the madarsa had joined formal schools for further studies.

Assessing Outcomes of Mainstreaming Efforts

Box XI: ChallengesWhen I proposed the idea of including modern curriculum in the Madarsa, I had to face a lot of opposition from my community. They did not want to take any support from the government. I was socially ostracized. I had to close the Madarsa and shift to another locality. I introduced modern curriculum in the Madarsa in the new locality. Many children were out of school as the government school was far. Around 50 children have been mainstreamed in regular schools. The people who were against me are now persuading me to come back.

– a Madarsa coordinator, Indore

Given that opinions are sharply divided on whether or not secular education should be part of the traditional Madarsa curriculum, the MOM initiative is a step towards change. The entire approach is geared towards reaching out specifically to a large number of children who have been left out of mainstream education in the state. Broadly, the achievements of the initiative are:

Beginning with seven Madarsas, MOM now covers more than 4000 (of the total of 4017) Madarsas in the state.

A large number of children are attaining primary and upper primary levels of education every year.

According to official reports in the year 2003-2004, 87 per cent of the total number of children who appeared for the class 5 examination conducted by the Madarsa Board passed the examination.


Teachers’ training and free distribution of textbooks have also facilitated learning.

Parents and other community members have accepted the initiative even though they are not equipped to provide any educational support to their children at home. They realize that an educated person has better chances in a changing world than the one who has not gone through school.

Sixty per cent of the total children enrolled in the Madarsas are girls. This is an achievement given the strict gender norms in the community. Teachers say girls put in a lot of effort and their performance is better in the examinations as compared to boys.

Most Madarsa functionaries view the introduction of modern subjects as an enabling step for children from poor backgrounds to access education.

Enrolment of out-of-school children has increased in the Madarsas after the introduction of MOM. Children have also been mainstreamed in regular schools after attending the madarsas.

In a few cases, efforts have been made to keep track of the children who left the Madarsa for regular schools.

Emerging Issues and Challenges A number of issues emerged during discussions with Madarsa and field-level functionaries regarding the implementation of MOM:

1. Role of the Madarsa Board

Madarsa functionaries felt that the Madarsa Board had been largely ineffective – whether it was to do with conducting primary and upper primary levels exams on time or issuing school-leaving certificates. Last-minute information regarding examinations had a ripple effect on children seeking admissions at the higher levels, especially in formal schools. They also complained that children seeking admission in government schools were often harassed or given least priority in admission as the Madarsa Board Certification was recognized but not considered in formal schools. Clearly, there was urgent need to address the problems between the Madarsas and the board in view of the latter’s critical role in the success of the intervention.

2. Strengthening Teaching and Teacher Training

The issue of imparting quality education is extremely significant in the context of the Madarsas. Financial constraints do not allow most Madarsas to hire two separate sets of teachers for religious and secular streams of education. Besides, there is no added incentive to teach all the other subjects. Some teachers who attended the training programs suggested that they be rescheduled with more time for subjects like Mathematics, English and Hindi to augment the teacher’s middling competencies. There was a demand also for a review of the outcomes of the current training modules to generate a fuller understanding of how quality education can be imparted and help the teacher make appropriate pedagogic choices in a contextually relevant manner.

3. Monitoring and Academic Support


While the monitoring system designed under the SSA is extensive and quality-centered, there is a discernable gap in the monitoring of the Madarsas. The emphasis is more on collecting quantitative information rather than qualitative. On the other hand, government functionaries are tentative about offering inputs to the Madarsas. There is a need to break this impasse.

Box 12: Specific suggestions emerging from the fieldUrgent need to mount a vigorous advocacy campaign to get parents to see the value of education. Need to explore possibilities of getting the Muslim community to enter into a sustained dialogue with the government for discharging its role towards quality education of children. Provide one or two teachers under the SSA for teaching the modern subjects.Include all the Madarsas in the mid-day meal program to help increase the attendance of children.Like government schools, distribute uniforms to the girls and regularize health check-ups for Madarsa children.Provide computer and library support to MadarsasVocational training may also prove fruitful for the livelihood of poor Madarsa children of 10+ to 14 years age group.Need for a scheduled monitoring structure at all levels and for identifying and training monitors at all levels Need to assess children at regular intervals and mainstream them in schools according to their competency levelsEvaluate the MOM initiative through an external agency for its effective implementation Organize a state level convention/meeting/workshop to discuss the achievements, opportunities and challenges of the MOM scheme in MP as well other states.Field notes, February 2006

Conclusion In the context of UEE, the effort to mainstream Madarsa education through the Modernization of Madarsa initiative is an important step towards enabling Muslim children to access and participate in education. Given the scale and expanse of the intervention, there is a need for sustained engagement with the various players to ensure that equity and quality considerations become integral part of this process. Lastly, the state also needs to review existing policies and ensure that schools are available in the areas of Muslim concentration in accordance with national norms so that children can become part of mainstream education and get rid of the ‘hard to reach’ label.


Case Study VIII

8. Transforming AP’s Government School Teachers: An MVF interventionB H A R A T P A T N I

The BackgroundThe year was 1996. In the state of Andhra Pradesh. “Teacher bashing” was at its peak. The indifference and arrogance of the government teachers of the state, their complacency, disinterest, and lethargy was the main topic of conversation in practically all fora.

The primary school system of AP had over 300,000 government school teachers. The number of children enrolled exceeded 60 lakh. Officially estimated numbers of out-of-school children were over 4.23 lakh – there were certainly many more, if only one re-defined “out-of-school” children as those who either were not enrolled at all, or else, were extremely irregular.

Cynics23 had declared that motivating this lot of government teachers was an impossible task. But MV Foundation, who had been working in Ranga Reddy district since 1991 on the inter-related problems of illiteracy and child labour adopted a unique strategy to attack this problem. Ms Shantha Sinha, Secretary Trustee of the Foundation, and Mr R Venkat Reddy, State Convenor of the MVF, set out to, inter alia, create a platform which would become the rallying point for that 15% of the teacher population who were struggling hard to mobilize the rural communities into sending their children to school!

On April 13, 1996, Mr Varak Kumar, a conscientious HM in Nawabpet mandal of Ranga Reddy district, invited Mr Venkat Reddy to address a group of trainers on teacher motivation at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) located at Vikarabad24. He had convinced the 100-odd trainee teachers at DIET to attend this presentation. Even though it was the second Saturday of the month, and, hence, a holiday for the teachers, 85 of them actually came to listen to Venkat Reddy in the pre-lunch session. Post lunch, 22 stayed back. By the evening, 15 or so had pledged to form a core group initially to meet regularly and exchange ideas on the way forward – and, thus, Bal Karmika Vimochana Vedika (BKVV) was born!

MV Foundation (MVF), a registered Trust established in 1981, is currently involved in mobilizing communities for abolition of child labour. The Foundation’s charter of basic principles for the emancipation of child labourers25 is simply:

All children must attend full-time formal day schools (and not night schools or NFE centres)

Any child out of school is a child labourer

23 Shantha Sinha believes that all cynics are “status quoists” – they do NOT want change!24 Vikarabad township is strategically located in that it provides accommodation to over 200 school teachers, who fan out to their schools all over the district every morning, and return by the evening to be with their families.25 Referred to by MVF as “The Non-Negotiables”


All work / labour is hazardous; it harms the overall growth and development of the child

There must be total abolition of child labour

Any justification perpetuating the existence of child labour must be condemned.

In order to make visible and significant impact on the existing child labour situation, MVF targets to influence government programs and policies, and consciously avoids setting up parallel structures. Instead, it utilizes existing government institutions, and deliberately includes the official government machinery into its programs.

Published MVF literature announces its declared strategy being based on age and gender, with the following clear action points for out-of-school children:

9-14 year olds are put through residential and non-residential bridge courses in order to equip them to catch up with regular school-going children

Younger children are directly admitted to mainstream schools

Detailed follow up programs are run to ensure a minimum drop-out rate, making the school more accessible to first-generation learners; issues such as organizing children’s birth certificates, negotiating with Head Masters (HM) and teachers for school admissions, ensuring admissions for eligible children in social welfare hostels run by the state etc.

Education activists are trained to identify and resolve impediments in the way of converting child labourers into fulltime students

The most important aspect of MVF’s strategy is the sensitization and mobilization of government school teachers around the issues of child labour. Mr Venkat Reddy estimated that while perhaps 15% of the teachers were clearly “negative” in their outlook, 70% were more in the “neutral” category. The remaining 15% were definitely potential motivators for converting the neutral category into active community mobilisers who would participate in the state-wide campaigns to bring out-of-school children into school. It was with this intention that he chose to accept Mr Varak Kumar’s invitation to address the trainee teachers at DIET, Vikarabad.

Speaking about the initial days of BKVV, Mr Venkat Reddy said: “The Vikarabad meeting led to MVF’s establishing a drop-in centre, with a small library, for the 200-odd government school teachers residing in that township – the teacher-to-teacher transaction which earlier took place at a chaurasta (i.e., a road crossing) shifted to this centre. If, say, teacher Bhaskar Rao had a specific problem with respect to out-of-school children or mobilizing a targeted community into sending its children to the school, he would engage 14 others in a discussion at the centre in the evening. A few of them would, then, even accompany him to the problem location in their free time – i.e., evenings or on weekly holidays! One of the elder teachers, Chandrayya, who was a known regular at bhajan26 gatherings, usually returning home only after 10 pm, conceded that helping to release bonded labour was the original bhajan, and confessed to the gossiping crowd at the drop-in centre that he saw God Himself in these children!”

26 Bhajans are Hindu religious songs, normally rendered in large groups either at temples, or even at private prayer meetings.


In sharp contrast to normally accepted practice of “teacher bashing”, the MVF gave visible respect, and space, to the teachers who assembled at Vikarabad in the evenings. Strange things started happening – it was not unusual, thereafter, to, for example, spy two members of radically opposed teachers’ unions riding the same bike on a mission to rescue some child labourer, or speak to the erring communities on the practice of child marriages etc!

Over the years, the role of the government school teacher had been limited to imparting education to whoever came to the school. In other words, it was generally accepted that the teacher's role commenced only after a child reached the school. Children outside school, including dropouts, were never thought to be the problem of the average teacher.

Box 13: Motivating teachers for UEE, the experience of M V Foundation

State Convenor, E. Anjaiah, in an interview, identified BKVV’s one point agenda as simply: “Teacher to teacher motivation through practice”. He outlined the process to be followed by the BKVV member as follows: a “committed teacher” leads the campaign by reaching his work place at least a half hour earlier than schedule, and travels to the village to meet with the parents of the children “at risk” and motivate them to send their ward(s) to school. Since in the Indian rural context, the school teacher is one of the most respected persons of the community, parents find it very difficult to counter the teacher’s arguments. Most parents give in, and their children start attending the village school. Over time, this teacher’s standing in the village community enhances considerably, and he becomes the envy of those teachers of the village school who are fence sitters – should they not also meet with the village folk and parents on a regular basis? Hesitatingly, some of them agree to attend a weekly meeting of the nearest BKVV chapter, and slowly but surely, they transform into teachers who understand that their task is more than simply teaching in the school. The weekly meetings are held only after school hours, on second Saturdays or on Sundays – under no circumstances are meetings to be held during school hours.Anjaiah clarifies that while teachers’ unions fight for teachers’ rights, BKVV fights for the child’s rights. Members appreciate that the poor children go through a daily struggle to stay in schools and that it is their (the teachers’) responsibility to make it as easy as possible for them to remain in schools. Further, they recognise that the older children require special attention to bring them on par with other children of similar age group in school. Teachers under the BKVV umbrella find that their capabilities are better tested while dealing with working children since they have to fine-tune their own skills and adopt innovative methods of teaching to be more effective. In short, this new activity raises the teachers' self-esteem and results in genuinely empowering them as teachers.Apart from withdrawing children from work and retaining them in the education net through bridge courses, BKVV is fast developing as a lobbying and advocacy organisation for protection of child rights. It is playing an active role in highlighting issues relating to girl child education, early child marriages, and bonded labour and so on. BKVV’s Anjaiah now claims a membership of over 2,000 committed government teachers, each of whom pays an annual membership fee of Rs 20. This is supplemented by financial support from MVF to meet the costs of workshops and other activities.

Source: Bharat Patni, Field Notes, 2006

The BKVV27 provided the forum for those government school teachers who believed that the teachers' role actually goes beyond the school, and, indeed, extends to the home of the underprivileged child who is out of school. In tune with MVF’s philosophy, BKVV members accepted that all children who are out of school were in

27 Bala Karmika Vimochana Vedika (BKVV) literally translates as “Government Teachers’ Forum for the Liberation of Child Labor”.


fact child labour, and have, since, accepted the responsibility to especially ensure that no child is subjected to the drudgery of work and exploitation.

Some other teacher groups joined the bandwagon – hubs such as Tandur, Vikarabad, and Ibrahimpatnam emerged. The other hubs at Chittoor, Srikakulum, Mahbubnagar, and Adilabad were set up much later.

BKVV’s charter of basic principles, or “non-negotiables”, emerged over the next two years:

BKVV and ‘Non-Negotiables for School Teachers and Schools

All children must join schools in classes according to their age.

School teachers must recognize that it is the responsibility of the school to give children a guarantee that they would learn.

School teachers must provide a guarantee to build competencies of children in order to reach the class in accordance with their age.

School teachers must guarantee that corporal punishment will not be used in the classroom to discipline children.

School teachers must ensure that all children feel wanted and are comfortable in the school.

The school must ensure that there is no violation of child rights in the school as well as in the community.

In 1999, under heavy pressure from the MVF and other groups, the state government decided to close down all the 17,000 non-formal education centres in all its 23 districts. The education department requested the assistance of interested organizations to change the mindsets of their teachers. The earlier “night schools” were to be converted into “dawn to dusk schools”, and MVF threw the challenge at the BKVV. In right earnest, MVF began the task – by first identifying a core group of 80 BKVV master trainers, who were assisted by 100-odd MVF volunteers. Official leave was sought and obtained for the BKVV core group (it is interesting to note that even in this hour of crisis, Tandur Mandal had initially refused to grant leave to the BKVV volunteers!) The campaign mode in which this 180-strong group worked created a huge mass of energy in the entire BKVV team, enthusing a lot of neutral teachers into “falling in line” with the committed few. The hidden agenda of the MVF in this exercise was to identify potential BKVV members – these were to be the ones who would make the ultimate difference. From each district, five best BKVV supporters were chosen, and a well knit core group of 120 members, finally, emerged.

In 2000-01, all state teacher trainees were asked to visit various MVF camps and interventions, and what ultimately resulted out of their interactions with the BKVV core group was the definition of a good school (see below) – which has since been adopted by the SSA as a model.


Box 14: What is a ‘good school’?A good school is one

Which keeps track of all children in the area / village and not just school-going children Where all children who are enrolled and whose names appear in the attendance register are actually physically present in the school Where all children are in their classes according to their age Where the distribution of the children among all classes is balanced, i.e., if there are 35 children on class 1, then there are approximately the same number in classes 6 or 10 or any other class Where the teacher pupil ratio is not greater than 1:40 Which ensures that child rights are not violated in the schools as well as in the community Where school teachers guarantee that corporal punishment will not be used in the classroom to discipline children Where school teachers ensure that all children feel wanted and are comfortable in schools – letting children conduct reviews of classroom transactions and taking their feedback In which schools recognize that every child has the capacity to learn and that it is the responsibility of the school to give children a guarantee that they would learn Where regular SEC meetings are held and parents and community are involved in planning, monitoring, attendance, and reviewing the progress of children, besides providing material support In which academic planning and evaluation is at the school level and effectively decentralized.

The BKVV recognizes schools as effective and, the only, institutions that keep children out of work. Schools perform the radical function of enabling the children break with their tradition of backwardness and the teachers become the harbingers of freedom, equity and justice. In order to encourage working children to access schools, the teachers have established processes to reach out to the parents and give them the confidence to send their children to schools. They have enthused the villagers to contribute generously to building the infrastructure in schools. The needs of the school, such as more teachers and accommodation, education material, have, thus, become community issues. Once the teachers extended their domain to cover children out of schools, not only are they in greater control of the process of getting children into school but they also enhance their own status within the community. A strong belief in the non-negotiable principles for emancipation of child labour is a precondition for membership to the BKVV.

Action PointsDuring the new millennium, the BKVV will focus on:

Instilling and motivating other teachers, peer groups and teachers' unions by spreading the message amongst government school teachers. Organizing seminars and workshops for teachers to improve the quality of education in schools. Imparting training to education volunteers.


Releasing and motivating child labour to enrol in mainstream schools. Running workshops for district level officials from the education department on how to combat the menace of child labour.

Assisting running of intensive bridge courses (for newly enrolled older children), of school strengthening programs

Setting up a database for all children in the 5-14 age group in every village.

Building pressure to modify and simplify the policies and practices relating to admissions, promotions, retention, and attendance - and make these more contextual to the social and cultural background of the rural children.

Stronger focus on the quality of education, on the girl child, and on recruiting more female teachers to redress the current balance of the membership, which is tilted in favour of males.

BKVV Membership and OutreachThe BKVV claims a membership of over 2,000 committed government teachers, each of whom pays an annual membership fee of Rs 20.

Work is spread over all the three regions of the state - Telengana, Andhra and Rayalseema. The MVF actively supports the BKVV both technically and, to a limited extent, financially in 14 of the 23 districts. Recent expansions have been into Nellore, Medak, and Prakasham districts which are being covered without MVF’s support. The nominal expenses on meetings, workshops and travelling for the purposes of mobilization are being met in these districts out of local retail donations.

Districts into which the BKVV is still to make an entry are Krishna, Khammam, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, West Godavari, and Guntur.

BKVV, Teachers’ Unions and Political PartiesSignificantly, all the BKVV members have joined together for the protection of child rights - in spite of the fact that most members of the BKVV are affiliated to their respective teachers' unions. Initially, the powerful (and politically protected) teachers’ unions28, as well as the HMs’ Association, summoned the BKVV top brass to brusquely enquire if this was meant to be a separate union29. But they were quickly assured that this forum was meant to only fight for child rights, and that BKVV members would continue to be active members of the recognized unions, which would, in turn, continue to fight for their own rights.

One of the tactics of the BKVV is to utilize the clout of the politically supported teachers’ unions to influence government policies and practices in respect of child rights. But Mr Venkat Reddy concedes that “as yet there is only 10% positive movement on this score”.

28 Five teachers’ unions referred to here are: PRTU, STU, APTF, DTF, & UTF.29 “Tum log koi nayee dukaan khol rahay ho kya?” - translated literally, this means “Are you folks planning to open a new shop?”


BKVV and MVFThe MVF facilitated the birth of the BKVV in early 1996 – but now it is a full-grown adult institution. The MVF continues to nurture the BKVV by providing financial and institutional support for conducting meetings, seminars and workshops at mandal, district, and, even, state levels. BKVV members travel extensively in their command area in order to mobilize support of more and more teachers, as well as communities, and chalk out action plans for the immediate and not-so-distant future.

IssuesThe BKVV code of conduct necessitates that all work be done strictly outside of normal school hours, i.e. in the evenings, on weekends, or on holidays. For obvious reasons, this does not suit the female teacher, who has to mind her house and her family when she is not at school. This has clearly resulted in the BKVV staying largely a male-dominated body – in a teacher population, which has at least 30 to 35% females!

As yet, the BKVV are largely dependent on the MVF for funds. On being questioned about his long-term thinking on the financial self-sufficiency of the BKVV, Mr Venkat Reddy explained that an attempt was made to obtain direct funding for the BKVV from donors. But this resulted in the BKVV office bearers loosing focus of the main objectives of the movement – instead diverting their time and energy into fund-raising activity. He mentioned that the fund requirement was so meagre that, perhaps, it was still worthwhile for the MVF (or similar organizations in other states) to continue providing the funding and administrative support to the group.

Conclusion:BKVV convenors and functionaries claim large-scale successes in “teacher to teacher motivation through practice”. Yet, over the last decade, only approximately 2,000 out of the 4.17 lakh teachers in the government school system have been “converted”. Having said this, one must appreciate that the number is at least 2,000 more than it would have been without the MVF intervention. Indeed, this unique model is worth piloting in a few other states of the country.


Case Study XI

9. Communitisation of Elementary Education in NagalandP A R I S M I T A S I N G H a n d M U T U M A S H O K

What is Communitisation?In many ways, ‘Communitisation’ of elementary education is in keeping with the tradition and spirit of the Naga society. Education has always been a priority for the community. In the older days, the ‘Morong’, or meeting hall, of the village served as space for the education of the young, and the entire community took interest in it. Even before the process of communitisation began, village communities, often, used the Village Development Board (VDB) funds and other resources and came together, often from more than one village, to establish a school. They would, then, approach the government to take over its administration. So, it became a “government school”. Consequently, the community’s role and participation in the school, often, ceased, and, according to reports, this hampered the effective functioning of the system. Communitisation was, thus, conceptualized and effected to evolve a system of management in which the community could play an active role. It was an attempt to make use of this ‘social capital’ to help achieve universal elementary enrolment and retention in Nagaland’s schools.

The word ‘communitisation’ was coined by Mr R S Pandey, Chief Secretary to the Government of Nagaland in 2001 to articulate the concept of the government sharing with the community the management and operational control of government institutions in various social sectors, like education, health and electricity. For communitisation of elementary education, village-level authorities like the Village Education Committee (VEC) were created to share with the government the responsibility for managing institutions, and become a stakeholder in the effective functioning of the schools. The VEC comprised representatives of the different stakeholders in education, including parents, women and local church groups. Thus, communitisation sought to put into place a system or process by which involvement and participation of communities were facilitated by creating village level authorities and by empowering them to manage their elementary education institutions under different jurisdictions. This would translate into effective management by giving the VEC, for example, the power to disburse teachers’ salaries, enforce ‘no work, no pay’, and source funds from the government and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) - effectively, transferring “power to the people”30. While the government would supervise and support the activities, the management functions would rest with the community.

With the enactment of the Nagaland Communitisation of Public Institution and Services (Act no. 2) 2002 (Nagaland Communitisation of Elementary Education Institutions and Services Rule, 2002) on the April 15, 2002, the education department began working towards Communitisation of elementary education. Implementation

30 In conversation with Mr K J Lohe, SPD, SSA, Nagaland.


began in September 2002 and by 2003, the department had communitised 402 schools in 218 villages. The state government has now decided to communities all elementary schools w.e.f. 01/01/2004

Main Objectives of the ProgramPromoting government -community partnership at the grassroots

Empowering the community by delegating management and supervision of government schools to the VEC

Ensuring accountability of teachers in the villages to local communities by giving the latter the power of disbursing salaries to them

Village Education Committee (VEC)

What is a Village Education Committee (VEC)?

In a communitised village, the Village Council constitutes a Village Education Committee (VEC). The VEC comprises a VEC chairman selected by the Council and the following members – Village Development Board (VDB) Secretary, head teacher of the communitised school, three representatives from among parents (which includes at least one woman), two representatives of teachers, a member from the Village Council, a representative each from different church denominations in the village, two members from the village community which includes, at least, one woman, sub inspector of school (SIS) of the area and the head teacher of the Government Middle School (GMS) as member secretary.

The VEC may also include other residents of the village. The VEC members (other than those who are ex-officio members) have a term of three years while a parent or a guardian will discontinue as a member once his/her ward ceases to be a student of the school.

The VEC shall meet once in three months. A Common Education Committee (CEC) is constituted in case more than one village shares a communitised school.

31What does a Village Education Committee (VEC) do?

Communitisation has empowered the VEC as the legal local authority to manage elementary education in the village. To be able to that, it has certain powers and functions - administrative, academic and financial. The administrative functions of the VEC include disbursing salaries and granting casual leave to teachers and the staff of the school, procure furniture, stationery etc and select/recommend appointment of substitute teachers against long-term vacancy. It also has academic functions like ensuring universal enrolment and retention of all children aged 6-14 years, implementing annual plans and programs towards quality improvement, and ensure supply of free textbooks, mid-day meals etc to students. To fulfil its financial obligations, the VEC must open a savings bank account which is operated under the joint signatures of the chairman and member secretary of the committee. It has to generate resources from the community, form an education fund, sanction and incur

31 We have relied on the Handbook of Communitization of Elementary Education , Govt, of Nagaland, Directorate of School Education for this section.


expenses from this fund, maintain proper accounts of income and expenditure and have them audited.

District Coordination Committee (DCC)

What is the District Coordination Committee (DCC)?

Every district has a DCC to support communitisation of elementary education institutions. The Deputy Commissioner (DC) is the chairman of the committee which comprises several other members. The DCC has been formed to plan, monitor, review and improve upon the program.

Box XII: Time Line32

In 2001 Mr R.S. Pandey, Chief Secretary, coined the word “Communitisation” to articulate the concept of the government sharing with the community the management and operational control of government institutions in various social sectors.

January 2002– An ordinance on communitisation issued. March 2002– The Nagaland Communitisation of Elementary Education

Institution and Services rule 2002 was notified by the Nagaland government The District Coordination Committee constituted with the Deputy

Commissioner (DC) as chairman. The State Resource Group is formed with members from the Directorate of

School Education, field officers and teachers, and the Nagaland Board of Secondary Education (NBSE), SCERT, DIETs and Nagaland University.

July 2002– The government relaxes rule 217 of the central treasury rules so that pay and allowances can be drawn in advance of up to three months.

The delegation of financial and cognate power rules 1964 delegating full powers to the DIS to sanction grant-in-aid to the VECs of communitised schools.

Training of education administrators, officers of the Directorate and field officers like DEO, DIS and SIS for initiation into the various aspects of communitisation.

All DDOs, accountants and bill assistants given practical training to acquaint them with the financial aspects of communitisation.

Resource persons from the School Education Directorate, SCERT and NBC are trained to impart training at the district level to the members of VECs of communitised schools and district level officials.

Formal launching of the program by Mr Pandey at Phek town. August 2002– Training at district level of the chairman, secretary and

selected VEC members of communitised villages by the four teams of resource persons. Training given in financial transaction, educational administration, local academic inputs and the general concept of the program. A handbook on communitisation of elementary education was also released.

The Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP) project is launched. This is a partnership venture of the state government and UNICEF to bring about quality improvement in schools. The State Resource Group (SRG) members are trained in child-centred and activity-based pedagogy.

32 We have relied on the Government of Nagaland, Directorate of School Education publication First Year of Communitization of Elementary Education in Nagaland, October 2003.


This is followed by mass training of teachers at the EBRCs to introduce the new pedagogy in schools.

September 2002– Communitisation of voluntary elementary schools/villages begins.

July 2003– Second round of training of VEC members of all communitised and non-communitised villages of Nagaland conducted in 21 DIS jurisdictions.

January 2004– The Nagaland government decides to communitise all schools of elementary education.

Zhavame Village – A Case StudyZhavame is a Chakhesang village in Phek district with two government primary schools and one middle school. Zhavame followed in the footsteps of the successfully communitised Rajeba village and volunteered during the second phase of the program in 2003-04. The VEC is empowered here and has replaced the school management board in the last two years. It has financial and management powers and far exceeds the authority and efficiency of the management board. At the beginning of each month, the VEC chairman signs the cheque for the teachers’ monthly salary. The school consults the committee in matters of leave and the latter has the right to use the “No work, no pay’ rule if a teacher shirks his or her work. This has significantly increased the authority of the VEC, a member tells us, even though there has never been the need to enforce this rule. The spirit of “communitisation” prevails here – he says.

It has been a busy year for the VEC – sorting out issues of repairing and extension of classrooms, teachers’ grants, mid-day meals (MDM) and other financial and administrative duties. The training programs, says Mr. Paul, (ex-VEC chief), have also been very useful in helping the VEC in the exercise of its responsibilities. From learning how to source government funds to managing accounts, there have been several training programs on academic, financial and administrative aspects. The VEC in this village meets at least twice a month instead of the mandatory once every three months. One of the issues taken up in the last meeting was that of the shortage of teachers in the Zhavame Govt. Primary School A. There are four classes but only three teachers. The VEC forwarded the issue to the DIS with the request that it is forwarded to the DEO and higher authorities. No action has been taken yet but the VEC members assure us that they would continue to advocate for more teachers so the children do not suffer. The VEC is proactive on issues of poor infrastructure, loans for buying textbooks, creating awareness among parents that the school provides free books and MDMs etc. Everyone agrees that such information has convinced more parents to send their children to the communitised school. The district education authorities also support the VEC and School Inspectors and other district-level officials often come for the VEC meetings.

The TeachersBefore communitisation, teacher absenteeism was the bane of elementary education in many of these villages. On the day of our visit, all the eight teachers were present in Zhavame Govt Middle School. The teachers admit that teacher attendance has increased significantly as they have to go to the VEC for casual leave.

Mr. C. Charles, Head Teacher, tells us that the school has been able to access educational grants through the VEC after it was communitised. School construction


and maintenance has also been possible through community participation. Inadequate school infrastructure and resources has been a problem in many of these villages. But the VEC and the community have come together to help the school. Teachers also feel that the VEC meetings have been very useful as it provides a platform that brings together the VEC members, teachers as well parents and guardians. The teachers have used this forum to address the issue of parent’s responsibilities and the problem of dropouts and irregular attendance of students. The problem is far from resolved but a beginning has been made. Greater emphasis and more persuasion in the future by the teachers and VEC members will change the situation, they say.

The relationship between the VEC and the teachers is not without its share of tensions. The teachers, for instance, feel that there is need for a clearer understanding of the policy of communitisation. However, on the whole, the teacher in charge, Mr Theko, feels that the program has instilled discipline in the staff and made them more competitive and eager to take on even the private schools in the area. In Rajeba village in Kohima, communitisation actually led to the closure of private schools in the village.33

Ward Education Committee (WEC)Communitisation began in the villages of Nagaland. With more and more villages volunteering to be a part of the successful program, urban areas also followed suit and scale happened “by example”. The structure is similar for urban schools, but certain aspects have been adapted to suit the demands of these areas. The Ward Education Committee (WEC) replaces the VEC in these parts. The program continues to be voluntary in the urban areas too. People realize the benefits of the program and as Mr Zewetsomero, WEC Chairperson of Pfutsero Adminstrative Colony put it, “We are very grateful to the Nagaland government for giving us the responsibility.” The rights and responsibilities of the WEC are similar to those of the VEC. Parents, too, have also been supportive. But the challenge is that most parents in the towns prefer to send their children to the English medium private schools. “The children of the poorest are with us,” Mr Zewetsomero says. Government schools are improving following communitisation but a lot of work is still needed to improve the quality of education, and children’s learning levels.

Resource GroupThe resource group has been training teachers and VEC members in teaching learning methods, and child-centred and activity-based pedagogy to make the curriculum more specific to local needs. The Educational Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP) project, a collaborative effort of the state government and UNICEF, is also an attempt to improve the quality of education. The resource group also makes inspection visits to the various villages post training and supports their work. While the VECs have made the job of the resource group easier following communitisation, the latter hopes the quality of data will improve with time with the help of monitoring by the VECs. The resource group also feels that teachers could benefit from pre-service training for teachers in the future.

33 Communitization and Resurgence of Naga Social Capital, Impact Assessment of Communitization of Public Institutions and services in Nagaland in the sectors of Elementary education, grassroot health services and electricity management by Pradip Prabhu and Dr. V. Suresh, September 2004.


ParentsWhat do the parents think of communitisation?

A lot of parents in Zhavame and its neighbouring villages we spoke to felt that the functioning of government schools had improved post communitisation and they were encouraged to send their children to these schools. Apart from good quality of teaching and learning, free textbooks and mid-day meals were added incentives. They also said teachers in government schools were far more qualified than those in the private schools but often the latter were perceived to be better, because of their better management and discipline – and, therefore, better results. They knew, however, that communitisation had led to better systems – “no work, no pay” for example - even in government schools. Be it management, school infrastructure; pass percentage of students, teacher absenteeism or quality of teaching – things were looking up, they said.

One could sense a new resurgence of faith in government schools. An important reason for this was that for the first time, parents had the chance to participate in the decision-making process of the school, and voice and resolve their concerns in the VEC meetings. They felt confident enough of taking up with the VEC their problems regarding the school. This, they felt, had forged a new bond between the parents and the teachers

ImpactDr V. Suresh and Mr Pradip Prabhu of the Organizational Development and Excellence Consultants Pvt. Ltd, Chennai, and UNICEF conducted an external impact assessment of the Communitisation of Public Institutions and Services in Nagaland. (September 2004). They studied communitisation of elementary education for its direct visible impact, management indicators, and increase in student enrolment, pass percentage and teacher attendance. It also explored the dynamics of the VEC, and the challenges of communitisation. The study was conducted in 50 villages of seven districts between June and July 2004.

The study highlighted some specific findings:

There was an increase in the enrolment of boys and girls in all communitised schools, with a 0% drop out rate in 23 of the 28 villages

Teacher attendance improved to more than 90% in 18 of the 28 schools

The pass percentage rates of children improved to 75-100% in 24 out of 28 schools covered in the survey.

100% pass percentage in Rusoma village of Kohima district and Chingmelen village in Tuensang district.

The FutureAlong with flowering wild apple trees are the stone menhirs that dot the landscape of Zhavame village. These stone menhirs belong to an old tradition in which people got together and pulled a large stone to a particular spot in the village. This was hard work and required much effort, and was followed by a feast. A family that performed this ritual stone carrying and provided the feast, would then be accorded the high honour of


a traditional roof crest, one that could be seen from a distance. With time, traditions and symbols have changed here, as anywhere else. But the spirit of community feeling and responsibility, and working together stays just the same – that is the foundation of communitisation. Perhaps in the future, it will be the quality and performance of village schools or the coming together of the community to construct a school that will serve as the source of pride and prestige for Zhavame and Nagaland.


Case Study X

10. The Pratham intervention in Kutch, GujaratN I T I S A X E N A

“People don’t believe us when we tell them that we can make their wards read and write in 45 days but using the Pratham module they do see the difference in the learning skills of their children. This module works as a `Jaadu ki Chadi’ (the magic wand) for us. On the one hand, through this we get to do what we have to do (making children read), and on the other, we also gain the trust of teachers and parents instantly,” exclaims a confident Usha, a Pratham Karyakarta in the Kutch region. Mr Patel, Head Master of a primary school in Nakhatrana block shares similar views. “The improvement in children’s learning skills are amazing. Frankly, I feel insecure looking at the achievement of these village volunteers. In a short span of time they are doing what we should have done in 3-4 years. I have asked my teachers to learn and adopt this method of teaching in regular classrooms. ”

It is not just the ‘45 days’ module’ (Accelerated Learning to Read technique) but also the intensive interaction with members of the community which has been the magic wand for Pratham in Kutch! However, a couple of years back the scenario was not so encouraging for the Pratham karyakartas working in rural Kutch.

Remote and sparsely populated, Kutch is the largest district (covering 45,612 sq km) in Gujarat and the second largest in India. This western region of the country faced the most devastating earthquake in recent history, which killed 12,221 people in Kutch alone. The devastation also included immense damage to the educational infrastructure and processes. Teachers, administrators and students were killed or injured. Ninety per cent schools in Kutch were rendered unusable.

While assessments could be made regarding the physical and economic losses, it was impossible to gauge the gravity of psychological toll of the earthquake on the people. This was especially true in the case of the most vulnerable sections of the affected – the children. As an immediate and most natural step towards bringing their lives to normalcy, efforts were made to resurrect the schooling system and bring students back to their usual routine.

At this critical juncture in 2002, Pratham initiated its work in the region. Since the state was making heavy investments on the infrastructure and teacher recruitment, Pratham decided to work on enhancing the learning abilities of the children through alternative educational interventions.

With its experience in urban areas, Pratham entered the villages of the Kutch region to find there was no one effective and scalable model that could be good for all the villages. Different strategies were, then, adopted and varied techniques were experimented with to improve the learning levels of the children. These included the Direct Initiative: three-month bridge courses for out-of-school children, remedial teaching module, NaMaGaJa technique (renewed pedagogical technique based on phonetics, adopted by GCERT) and VaGaLe (Vaachan, Gannan, Lekhan – the 3 Rs).


Approaching the Community: The RCA Framework After initial experimentation, it became apparent towards the end of 2002 that community participation, with the right support of government institutions, was crucial for the sustained success of any educational initiative. By now Pratham had also started working in the other districts of the state. These ongoing efforts were simultaneous with the pilot project on the collaborative effort with people and government, to rapidly enhance the reading skills of children in Maharashtra, which began in January-March 2003.

Under this Catalytic Initiative, Pratham devised ways of enabling the community to be more responsive and accountable to the educational needs of the children. Simultaneously, it rendered technical support in the regular teacher’s training program in selected districts. But as these techniques were not being disseminated to their optimal effectiveness, this intervention could not go very far. However, a sub-model of the initiative, being implemented on an experimental basis in Kutch, was gaining momentum. Strategically, this approach for strengthening village institutions to catalyze communities to drive educational change in their villages was taken up by Pratham as a movement (i.e. “everyone doing the same thing at the same time”) in the other districts also.

Thus, the Rural Community Approach (RCA), which was initiated in 500 villages of Kutch, reached 2670 villages in 29 blocks of nine districts of Gujarat. In Kutch, it spread out from 60 villages to all the 958 villages in the district (10 blocks).

Under the RCA, Pratham has evolved processes for enabling the community to own the educational agenda in villages, facilitate participation for sustained reform and for change to be in consonance with local needs and issues. The over arching goal has been to help communities to articulate their needs, so that SSA goal of UEE can be achieved by the year 2010. Pratham’s innovations in community mobilisation are as under34:

Activation of Village Education Committees (VEC)During the initial experimental phase, Pratham discovered that the status of the Village Education Committees (VECs) left much to be desired. Community involvement for taking up educational reform without involving the VEC would have been meaningless. So, Pratham decided to work towards activating VECs and evolved simple steps to make them confident of taking decisions on education. The process involved ranking the VEC on a scale of 0 to 4 to assess its status, followed by another step-wise process for activation.

The ranking scale is as follows: Ranking Indicators

0 The villagers do not even know that they are on a VEC.1 VECs members know they are members but do not do anything or attend any

meetings.2 Members at least visit the school regularly whenever the principal or the

teachers call them or when functions are organized in the schools.3. They do some work, though not very effective or adequate. They would take up

basic responsibility of enrolment, retention, reduction of dropout rate, 34 Ref : Enabling Community Participation in Universalizing Quality Education, Pratham, Gujarat


infrastructure facilities. 4. They know that the VEC is active, has a plan and is executing it in order to

achieve some basic quality of education.

In July 2004, 1140 VECs in four districts of Gujarat (Banaskantha, Rajkot, Surat and Kutch) were ranked. The results were staggering. Fifty-two per cent of the VEC members across Gujarat were not even aware of their membership, 40% were aware only of the existence of a body called VEC but they had never attended any VEC meetings. In Kutch, 61% of the 420 VECs ranked were in zero category.

The six-step ranking process of a VEC was evolved to ensure that the local community, elected panchayat members and government officials were involved in the process.

Table 15: Six steps to rank a VECStep Number Activity

Step one Ranking. Each VEC activist first ranks the VEC in his / her village on a scale of 0 to 4 (as defined above).

Step twoThe Taluka Development Officer organizes a meeting of sarpanches of 10-30 villages, in which the issue of education is discussed and then introduces the role/working of the VEC in that meeting

Step three

Cluster Resource Centre Coordinators organize a meeting of VEC members of 8-10 villages, in which the education status and the role, functions and powers of working of the VEC are discussed. Attending such a workshop clarifies the role of VEC members and excites them to take action.

Step four

VEC activists hold a meeting of the panchayat and VEC members at the sarpanch’s house to discuss their apprehensions, clarifications, plans etc and motivate them to hold Shikshan Gram Sabha (SGS) to discuss with the people the basic educational problems in the village.

Step five

The SGS provides space people to vent their problems and then contextualize the VEC as an intermediary to solve these problems. At the SGS, the VECs are put centre stage for education issues in the village. The VEC members are formally recognized by the villagers at the Gram Sabha.

Step six

A specific action plan is drawn up at the SGS (regarding volunteers, time lines, contributions etc). It may include issues like demanding an additional teacher, enrolment, applying for alternative schooling, issues of water, construction of toilets, teacher irregularity, reduction in dropout rate, quality of education-reading/writing/math etc. The plan is then pasted in the school or Panchayat Bhawan

Shikshan Gram Sabhas (SGS)Shikshan Gram Sabha (SGS) is a common platform for sharing education issues, expressing aspirations and making community-owned action plans on improving education. This involves deciding on a mutually agreeable date, public testing to gauge the learning levels of children in the village, formulating an action plan, committing to that action plan and community/individuals taking responsibility for working on the action plan so formulated.

Shikshan Gram Sabhas form an important step in VEC activation. These Sabhas are organised with prior consent of the sarpanch and VEC members on a date decided by


them. (Refer to Steps 4, 5 and 6 in the six-step ranking process table above) To engender a greater level of involvement, certain activities are conducted during the sabha, like public testing35 of the children present in sabha. This acts as an immediate check of the status of the education delivery system in the village. The results of 1100 public testing in 1385 villages of the four districts36 revealed that 60% children assessed could not read.

Following the Shikshan Gram sabhas, action plans are made by the VEC members and people present at the sabha. The action plan is a simple document that specifies the work that villagers have decided to complete within a mutually decided time frame; and the persons who agree to take the responsibilities to accomplish the work to be done. Ninety percent of the 922 VECs prepared action plans addressing issues relating to the children’s attendance, teacher absenteeism, and school infrastructure.

VolunteersA volunteer is an educated community member taking the ownership of making children read in the village. Unpaid volunteers, wanting to contribute to their village, have come forward to help children with no reading abilities in their village read through reading classes using Pratham’s reading technique.

VECs in Kutch, Banaskantha, Rajkot, Baroda and Surat mobilized 1,174 volunteers to conduct remedial reading classes for 20,000 rural children in these districts. In order to ensure that everyone in the village, including teachers and parents, took collective responsibility to improve the education scenario in the village, the VEC proposed that people from the village come forward to conduct remedial reading classes for the children. In most cases, young girls and boys, present during the public assessment of children, volunteered to take the classes. Pratham conducted training of 1,035 such village youth from over 500 villages.

Dhan PatrakThe education profile and learning level of every child in a village has been captured through a report card called ‘Dhan Patrak’. The word ‘Dhan’ means wealth, and, in this case, it refers to the wealth, which is in form of children, who are the future of a village. Dhan Patrak is a record of the education profile of each child, between 3-14 years of age, in a village. The data is collected habitation-wise and is much detailed than the Village Education Register or Ward Education Register, being used by education functionaries under the SSA.

The Dhan Patrak, filled by the volunteers with help from Pratham, acts as a tool to decide the intervention that can be made in the village for various categories of children – in school, out of school, those with low learning levels and children out of anganwadis etc. Pratham is in the process of collating child-wise data through Dhan Patrak in its areas of operation.

Witnessing the Change: Challenges and Impact

35 Public testing is done through Pratham technique, where in, a child is tested on a scale of 0 to 4 to gauge his learning level. (0-Cannot identify any alphabet; 1- Can identify only alphabets; 2-Can identify/read words; 3- Can read a simple sentence; 4- Can read a story/paragraph)36 Kutch, Rajkot, Surat and Baroda


The RCA experience, so far, has been the learning curve for Pratham both in terms of achievements and challenges. When Pratham entered Kutch, it faced several problems pertaining to the educational environment in the region. The most immediate ones were:

Teacher absenteeism

Poor achievement levels in classrooms

Declining children’s attendance

Lack of school infrastructure

Many teachers got themselves transferred out of and migrated from this area after the quake

More than 80% of the new appointees did not belong to Kutch. This led to lack of empathy with the local issues

Lack of fluency in Kutchi was a hindrance for most teachers in communicating with VEC members, parents and, also, children

Irregularity and absenteeism among the new teachers

Dysfunctional VECs, community oblivious of its potential to challenge the schools, no local mechanisms demanding accountability from the system

Socio-political and cultural rifts within the community made it extremely difficult for the karyakartas to make people agree on critical issues

Cynicism marked the initial response of government functionaries and local representatives.

The meetings of block teams with the Taluka (Block) Development Officer (TDO) signalled the turning point in the initiative. Perceptions of both the community and government functionaries changed towards Pratham whose work is now seen as leveraging the state’s initiative. Today, block teams work closely with BRCCs (Block Resource Centre Coordinators), CRCCs (Cluster Resource Centre Coordinators) and school teachers. Pratham facilitators also act as resource persons for VEC trainings and community mobilization activities at the BRC level. The initiative is credited for bridging the distance between the community and the school.

ImpactEducation functionaries in the region and other stakeholders at different levels respond affirmatively when talking about an improvement in the educational environment due to the coordinated efforts of the district education machinery and Pratham.

1. Significant change and steady movement upwards, especially in the categories from 0 to 3, in comparison to the baseline ranking of the VEC

2. VEC members participate actively in the local planning processes. The phenomenon is gaining visibility, affirming the conceptual belief in bottom-up planning processes.

3. The school has benefited in many ways, including in infrastructure development, improvement in classroom processes, effectiveness of MDM and AWC and also opening up of proper communication channels between school and the community.


4. Steady increase in the number of village volunteers being appointed by the VEC. A substantial number stay on with the program, which indicates a sustained engagement of the community in the education activities, and not a one-off involvement.

5. Findings of post public assessment show a spurt of 68% (aggregate for five districts – Kutch, Rajkot, Surat, Baroda and Banaskantha) in the number of children who were able to read after the L2R classes. In Kutch district, there is an increase of 74% children who learnt to read in the post assessment period.37

6. At present, approximately 30,000 children across the state are benefiting from learn to read (L2R) classes being run by 1600 volunteers. The quality of learning amongst these children will need a separate analysis but the most critical part of these L2R classes is that these children are able to `read’ – an achievement still elusive to majority of students in government primary schools in the country.

7. For a variety of reasons earlier (most prominent of them being illiteracy amongst parents), families felt incapable of questioning a teacher’s capability or influencing the schooling in any other way. Today, with the post-public assessment results, they can go to the teacher and table their demand for `good’ education for their children.

Managing the Change: Program Structure and Management SystemIn terms of a six-monthly program cycle, the RCA is in the 7 th program cycle. Activities to be undertaken in each program cycle are decided at a state level meeting wherein all the district teams participate actively.

Table 16: Programme CyclesProgram Cycle Key ActivitiesCycle I Jan 2002 to March 2003

Initial Experimentation Phase. Sub-models under the RCA being experimented in different parts of Gujarat, including Kutch where Pratham started working on VEC activation

Cycle II April 2003 to Sept. 2003

Team of five members started efforts to get the rural community in Kutch to participate in Pratham programs, including classes. Apathy and lack of initiative amongst the villagers to change the education scenario characterized this period.

Cycle III Oct. 2003 to March 2004

Scope of this intervention expanded to 100 villages in Kutch. With a team of 20, initial experiments to activate VECs were started. Lack of a functional VEC emerged as a constraint to engaging communities in dialogue over educational issues.

Cycle IV April 2004 to Sept. 2004

VEC activation efforts expanded to 922 villages, including Surat and Rajkot districts. The 6-step VEC activation model was designed and implemented in these villages. During this period, Pratham facilitated VEC meetings, Shikshan Gram Sabhas and preparation of action plans to solve infrastructure and attendance issues of the village.

Cycle V Oct. 2004 to March 2005

Pratham facilitated the VECs across the villages to conduct public assessments of learning levels of children during Shikshan Gram Sabhas (SGS). 935 volunteers (approx. 75% in

37 Ref : Reading Level Survey Conducted By 8000 Volunteers Across 22 Talukas, Pratham Gujarat


the Kutch region), identified by the VEC and community were attached to schools for improving learning levels of children.

Cycle VI April 2005 to Sept. 2005

Increased momentum in community participation and ownership of education agenda. VECs started the process of drawing up education plans for their respective villages. The Village Education Plan would be designed to assess the education profile of the village on 3 parameters: (1) School Functioning (2) Learning levels and (3) Govt. Schemes (quality of functioning of ICDS and MDM would be assessed). All villages carried out baseline assessments of the village on the scale developed for assessing reading and math levels.

Cycle VII Oct. 2005 to March 2006

Phased assessments of current status of the village on the indicators developed for school functioning, ICDS & MDM schemes, reading and math levels, has been initiated in 3000 villages. This cycle faced some delay in activities as this also the spin-off stage, the block teams are in the process of federating as separate NGOs, are envisaged to carry on the RCA work along with their own interventions.

Decentralized planning, administration and monitoring are central to the Rural Community Approach - not only for effective implementation of interventions but also within the program support systems. Karyakartas are required to plan independently, depending on the local needs of the community. This autonomy in a small, but effective, way makes them self-reliant and accountable. Regular planning and monitoring mechanisms are inbuilt in the program through meetings and reviews where updates are shared and planning done for the future.

Capacity building and leadership skill development measures are the cornerstone of the program. Hands-on training and teaching at L2R classes is a pre-requisite for the facilitators and trainers, which lead to a proper transfer of methodologies from one level to another.

The plan of action for the next phase focuses on:

Scalable modules for libraries, ICDS, MDM being developed – Active community members and groups to take responsibility for effective monitoring of services; children to take responsibility for running and managing libraries; mothers’ groups will help in improving quality of anganwadi services; senior community members e.g. Dadaji to verify MDM, Dadiji to teach children at home. Activity-based learning to involve local artisans and skilled workers.

Formation of District Resource Groups as a district level unit for planning and strategy-formulation and collaborate with block and local-level interventions. This would include the District Education Officer, representatives from industries, local NGOs & Pratham.


Case Study XI

1I. Active Schools – LaturB I N A Y P A T T A N A Y A K

GENERALLY children come to ‘schools’ to learn and practise. They sit in rows, listen, read, write, think… and undergo many such mechanical processes directed, essentially, by the teacher. Active Schools is an initiative that breaks away from teacher-centric learning and looks at classroom processes, indeed the process of education, from the point of view of the child. It is an intervention that seeks to sharpen the different inherent skills of children through a variety of group or individual activities, sometimes even independent of the teacher.

The idea of Active Schools started taking shape with the DPEP in Maharashtra. Under the program, teachers and administrative officers visited some select good schools and also perused documents on innovative strategies for school improvement. This exposure enthused some teachers of Latur district. Led by Shankar Eknath Sadakare to initiate a similar school improvement program in their own district, the teachers developed a good number of activity-oriented TLMs for multi-grade situations and experimented in their own school. The success of this school attracted the attention of the district authorities who scaled up the experiment to 15 schools in five blocks followed by its expansion to 117 schools in each cluster.

Today, the actual number of schools may be greater because many neighbourhood schools have informally started following similar practices. Combined tests conducted for children of Active Schools, established private schools, government and other recognized schools have revealed that children of Active Schools performed better than the children of all other school categories, except in the sphere of copying! The program is now being expanded across the district.

Active Schools – A Timeline 1996-97 – Experiment in one school,

1997-98 – Expansion to 15 schools (3 in each block; 5 blocks of Latur),

1998-99 – Expanded to 117 schools (one in each cluster; all 102 clusters of the district).

The Active Schools Program was started as a small pilot in Latur district in Maharashtra in 1998. The unique aspect about the program was that it was entirely a district-level initiative. Apart from a changed pedagogy, the Active Schools also attempted to design a new evaluation system in keeping with the former. To understand how things started changing in the evaluation mechanism of active schools of Maharashtra, we need to look at the genesis of the project. Initially, a district team, including teachers, visited different educational experiments across the country, such as Digantar and Bodh (Rajasthan), Nali Kali (Karnataka), Gram Mangal, Casp Plan, Sandipanee (Maharashtra), Loreto School (Kolkata), Eklavya (Madhya Pradesh) etc. to


understand the curriculum, materials and pedagogy of these innovative efforts. Since several of the team members were a part of the state team for textbook development and teachers’ training, they had a clear understanding of the state approach. This exposure gave them new ideas and also helped them realize the limitations of their own approach. On return, they again analyzed their own curriculum, materials, pedagogy and evaluation strategy. They conceptualized a new system of pedagogy for their schools in the form of a pilot project that centred on improvised learning ladders. The student evaluation system also evolved as part of the new pedagogy. This project was, then, implemented in 15 schools of Latur.

After a year of experimenting in these schools, the project was expanded to one well-performing school in each cluster of Latur district, covering a total of 117 schools.

Table 17: Adapting from innovations, the Latur effort.Activity Reference

Classroom management (Varg vyavastha)Peer grouping: small, large, pair, individualPace learning: Learning guides/ course booksSelf-learning: with self learning cards Frame work period

Esculae Neuva, ColumbiaDigantar, Bodh, Casp-planGram mangal

Learning boards (Adhyayan Phalak)Prerna phalakTheme boardCreativity boardKatran phalak

Loretto, Calcutta, Own innovation

Learning corners (Adhyayan Kopre)Reading cornerMathematics cornerNature/science cornerExhibition (weekly) corner

Esculae Nueva, Colombia

Special Activities (Vishesh Upakram)AssemblyWhat did I learn today?Daily diary (students)Nyay mandal

Digantar, Gram mangalJan Kalyan

Supported boards (Purak Phalak)Display boardsActivity boardsToday’s content/studyRunning blackboards

Digantar

Supported activities (Purak upakram)Today’s calendarToday’s weatherStudent’s attendance cardsScrap books

Gram mangalEsculae Nueva

Supported materials (Purak sahitya)Subject symbolsBags for cardsWaste basketHanging pictures

Nali Kali (Karnataka)

Materials for teachers (Shikshakache sahitya)Learning ladderDaily work sheetAchievement recordComprehensive card

Gram mangal. Loretto

Charts (Takte) Gram Mangal, own innovation


Activity ReferenceMinistry (Varga Mantrimandal)Individual responsibilities (Karya Vibhagani)Daily time tables (Dainandin velepatrak)Maps (Nakasha)Wall paper (Bhittipatrak)Year Planners (Varshik Niyojan)Other materials Ropes and Clips (Do-ya va chimte)Colouring crayons (Rangkandya)Slates/notebook (Patya Vahya)White Papers (Pandhare kagaj)Pencils, eraser (Pencili rubber)Education toys (Shaikshanik khelni)Chalks, dusters, pointer (Khadu duster darshak)

Own innovation

Source: Binay Pattanayak, Field notes, Case Study X, Annexure I

A Good Systemic Practice

The Active School culture is marked by respect for the good practices of different schools not only in the home state, but outside as well. The teachers give due credit to all the sources from where they have learnt something to implement in their own schools. Apart from formulating their own activities and making their own learning materials, Active Schools have borrowed from interventions and organizations such as Nali Kali, Digantar, Esculae Nueva (Columbia), Loretto, Bodh and Gram Mangal. The target audiences of the intervention, in this case, were both students and teachers.

a) Objectives with respect to students

To encourage cooperative learning through peer group.

To encourage self-learning among children.

To encourage self-learning through worksheets and other self-learning materials.

To design different activities for enhancing competencies of children.

To sensitize observation, imagination and critical thinking skills of children.

To provide freedom to children to learn as per own pace and interest.

To provide remedial education to low achievers.

To develop skills in children for using textbooks as self-learning materials.

To facilitate children’s learning as per their achievement levels and through multi-level teaching.

To boost the confidence of the learners.

b) Objectives with respect to teachers

To improve the skills of teachers for attending to children in a full class, in small groups and individually.

To introduce child-centred activity based on joyful teaching.

To encourage development of life skills and master learning.

To attend to hard spots in teaching-learning by identifying simple activities and exercises.


To try out the activities and exercises and identify their utilities.

To introduce ways of utilization non-text books for activities in the school.

To facilitate peer tutoring.

c) Objectives with respect to others

To project Active Schools as model schools in teacher training programs.

Table 18: Daily routine in Active Schools, LaturTechniques Grouping Teacher’s

role Activity Outcome

Awareness for learning

Class as a whole

As an assistant

Assembly, song/story discussion

To orient children towards learning

Co-operative learning Small groups As a

consultant

Assessment with the help of self-learning cards

To prepare learners/for contents

Teacher guided learning

Large groups As a tutor Demonstration by the teacher

To clarify the doubts of children better way

Pace-learning Individual As a facilitator Supervised study

To understand the status of the children’s learning

Peer-tutoring Pairs As a supervisor Remedial work

To compensate the gaps in learning through peer cooperation

Free-work Independent As a manager

As per the student’s choice, drawing, craftwork, playing with toys, reading books

To open ways for creative expressions and mastery.

Field-work Small groups As a guide Project work, activities/games

To encourage the exploring nature of children

Classroom PracticesActive Schools revamped their teaching learning process by following these classroom practices:

Preparation – This enables the children to recall and revise their own experience regarding the concept, rules or knowledge before experiencing a new subject/concept. This is like a warm-up exercise that builds a bridge between their existing knowledge and new knowledge.

Brief Introduction – The new concept is introduced to children through a paper/presentation/diagram. For starters, children in groups try to interpret and make some meaning of the concept.

Understanding – Then, they are encouraged to undertake some simple exercises, or activities to get familiar with the different dimensions of the concept.

Application – This is followed by more complex and challenging examples and exercises to help them acquire a far deeper comprehension of the concept.


Evaluation – How much has each child understood the concept? Some related exercises are carried out to test the level of every child’s understanding. This indicates broadly the position of each child in the learning process. Teachers and peers are always at hand for those who need further help and attention to help improve their understanding of the subject.

Box XIII: A Day in an Active SchoolRight from cleaning the campus, keeping the garden green and organizing the classroom to attending a very eclectic morning assembly that includes prayer and pledge, songs and stories and also the day’s news, children in Active Schools are never short of joyous activity. There are boards to be updated, self-attendance sheets to be filled, weekly exhibitions to be held and self-grooming to attend to! Card-based activity happens in small groups where each child gets a chance for creative expression. The teacher becomes a facilitator, clarifying doubts, helping with the hard spots and providing direct and indirect inputs. Children develop scrap books from locally available material, engage in self-learning and learn also from toys, their environment and from books other than their school books. There are games – educational and also for pure fun, question-answer sessions, feedback and suggestion time… and the day ends with another assembly, with introspection and retrospection.On the whole this turns out to be an interesting combination of various components for children’s better learning. In programs like Nali Kali, self-learning cards are used in small groups without any further use of textbooks. But Active Schools go for group-work using self-learning cards, textbooks, direct teaching by the teacher, self-understanding etc. This is a series of attempts for enabling each child to understand the subjects in the best way possible. It is true that the lead teachers of Active Schools are not fully satisfied with their textbooks and are trying to improvise the on the content through the supplementary booklets. But their use of existing materials in an effective way has turned out to be more productive. They have also strung the periods in such a way that the children do not feel overburdened.

Table 19: Active Schools vs General SchoolsS.No. General Schools Active Schools

1. School timings as per state government norms

School timings as per state government norms

2. No group activities Well-planned group activities 3. State curriculum and evaluation

strategies followedState curriculum and evaluation strategies followed

4. No self-learning cards; only textbooks are used

Well-organized self-learning materials along with textbooks

5. Minimum interaction between children and teachers

Continuous interaction of learners materials and teachers

6. School routine as per state norms School routine reworked to accommodate a wide range of activities

7. No special arrangement for irregular students

The materials are so graded to allow irregular students to make up their learning continuity

8. Has strong limitation in multi-grade situations as materials and pedagogy are designed for mono-grade situations

Is highly useful in multi-grade situations

Program ImplementationFor an initiative such as this, the district authorities would have done well to set up a technical support group for the smooth expansion and quality assurance of the program. But, surprisingly, there was no organized academic support structure for the initiative. The Latur district DPEP office, like the other districts of Maharashtra, had a


district team consisting of the DPC, ADPC and five persons for program implementation (teacher training in-charge, MLL in-charge, TL methodology in-charge, media in-charge and mahila sanchalika) other than the non-academic staff. But these five program people were to look after planning and implementation of the DPEP and SSA activities and had no specific responsibility for Active Schools. But the small team of teachers managed to explore ways to manage the program in collaboration with the BRC and CRCs at the school level.

Each month the core team met with the BRCs and CRCs separately to discuss the issues and problems related to Active Schools and the implementation of the program.

Other than these meetings, the in-service training of teachers also enabled the core team to share its concerns, ideas and expertise with the teachers of the concerned schools from time to time.

Apart from the TLM grants of Rs. 500 per teacher annually, there was no other financial support for the schools to improve quality of the program. Only self-learning materials were provided by the district authorities. But teachers remained enthusiastic about adopting the program in their schools. There were finances earmarked for the monitoring of the schools. The core team kept on looking for opportunities like teachers’ training, monthly cluster-level meetings and visits to monitor the progress of the schools and extend the best possible motivation and academic support.

The core team also detailed out the concept paper for Active Schools, strategies for classroom layout, teaching learning materials and processes, role and functions of BRCs/ CRCs, formats for learners’ evaluation, students’ self attendance, progress cards and year planner. Formats were made to record school visits, for review of monthly cluster-level meetings, chain trainings, chintan shivir or evaluation camps, action plan for teachers and several other procedures. Such detailed outlines reflect the level of concern and involvement of teachers in the program.

Monitoring and Assessment The DRCs and BRCs were expected to visit the schools regularly and extend academic support to the schools. Several monitoring formats were developed by the core team for the purpose.

The data collected from teachers (during cluster-level meetings) and Cluster Heads was sent to the core team at district offices and further action plans were designed by them after consolidating and analyzing the information. Chain trainings and the pilot evaluation project were suitably revised to accommodate emerging issues from the monitoring formats.

A significant initiative of the Active Schools for maintaining quality in learning and school management is the Pilot Evaluation Program.

Pilot Evaluation Project of Active Schools Teachers in the Active Schools have moved forward by rejecting the initially designed Prashna Pedhi (question bank) and improvising on the state-wide prevalent SCERT approach to continuous and comprehensive evaluation. They have designed a 'Pilot Evaluation Project' for their new curriculum in the form of ‘Learning Ladders’ and the new pedagogy to make the CCE an inherent part of the teaching-learning process.


The learning ladder serves as the base for all pedagogical transactions and the CCE process indicates the true status of each child’s level of learning on a regular basis. Let us have a look at their present evaluation approach over a year.

a) Year planning: An annual year planner, designed by the lead teachers of the project, is supplied by the district office to all the schools in June. It functions as the evaluation strategy guide for each school.

Teacher empowerment: One experienced teacher from each cluster, along with the BRC coordinators, is trained by the district level core teachers in the chain or cascade trainings to help teachers understand better the teaching-learning approach, and evaluation and remedial mechanisms. Four such chain trainings are organized in a year, their frequency being one before each competency test (four competency tests a year). Then these teachers go back to their own clusters to orient the other teachers of the cluster in the monthly gat sammelan (monthly meeting).

Planning for tests: Dates for competency tests and setting of time table, dates and venues for development of question papers, their editing, printing and distribution mechanism are finalized at the monthly meeting.

Question papers for tests: Test papers based on learning ladders for all classes are developed at the same venue by expert teachers at the BRC and DRC level.

Editing of question papers: This workshop is conducted in a primary school for trying out questions on the spot. Selected participants, including teachers of this school, external teachers, cluster heads and BRC personnel read, discuss and edit every question meticulously. Some times, they try out similar questions with the children of the host school to measure their appropriateness for the tests. Samples of these edited test papers are passed on to the block authorities for verification and finalization.

Printing and distribution of test papers: Each block has a block level examination board. Six experts in the block finalize the edited test papers, get them printed and circulate in all clusters or schools.

Schedule of the tests: Children are intimated well in advance about the dates of the competency tests. They are allowed to complete their work without the ‘3-hour only’ sword hanging on their head. They can ask the teacher to clarify doubts about a question. The children take one subject every day: written in the morning and oral in the afternoon.

Achievement record: All the answer sheets are assessed and their results recorded in the respective comprehensive cards and school achievement records within a week. They indicate the learning achievement of each child in different areas of each subject. The cards are signed by the class teacher and headmaster and sent to the parents. The latter check the status of their children and return the signed copy to the school. They also go to school to discuss their wards’ achievements.

Preparation of achievement report: All the cards then go to the cluster head to record the rate of progress of children in that cluster. This helps in further preparation, planning and action. This exercise is completed within two weeks after the competency tests. The final results reach BRC and district offices.

Assessment of achievement level: A trained team makes surprise visits to several schools with same or similar test papers. They test some randomly selected children and compare this performance with what they have done in the competency tests.


Analysis and remedial work: The test papers and the achievement records in each class are compared to see where most children have failed to do well (qualifying marks - 60%). Remedial programs are conducted in the classes for each of these children and the progress following these classes is recorded in the school registers and children’s comprehensive cards.

Need assessment for training: The experience and results of the competency tests of different schools are discussed at the following monthly cluster-level teachers’ meetings and district-level chain trainings. The problems and possibilities identified in the school process act as the main issues for planning and orientation in the Active School program. These issues are identified from some of the key areas of school learning development initiatives. Some of these key areas are: achievement reports, school visit reports, discussion with teachers, monthly meeting at the CRC, BRC and district levels and assessment reports. These important issues are focused and discussed in the training programs.

Impact It wasn’t smooth sailing for the program, whether within the school or government at various levels. The polarization of teachers was evident with regard to the Active School approach, particularly when a clutch of teachers were unable to respond to the new system. They would quickly switch to the old system even as they continued to vocalize their doubts about the new one. This proved counter productive for the children and also for the enthusiastic group of teachers who wanted to try out the Active School strategies.

The poor academic resourcefulness of CRCs and BRCs was another hurdle for many teachers. Problems related to learning and school management was a regular feature. If the resource teachers of BRCs and CRCs were experienced and enthusiastic, they could address the issues and this encouraged the teachers concerned to try and solve the problems. But if the academic support structure was weak, the problems continued to pile up and learning achievement in such schools was affected.

The concept of chain training was aimed at solving the problems arising out of a weak support structure. This meant engaging a resourceful and interested teacher of a cluster to visit the teachers once in a month and help them in solving emergent issues through discussions and strategizing. This approach was found to be a successful move. The teachers, on their part, would wait eagerly for these monthly interactions.

The objectives of the training were:

To provide continuous training opportunity to teachers.

To catalyze the learning attitudes of teachers.

To identify and address the problems and limitations of teachers.

To create opportunities for teachers to share their experiences with each other.

Interaction with Children In our visits to the classrooms, we found the level of participation of children in each classroom to be very high, as were the confidence levels, their interest in activity-based and experimental learning. Every child in each classroom wanted to exhibit and share


his or her skills, creations and experience. This is a significant achievement of Active Schools. Even teachers and members of the community were seen to be enthusiastic about sharing their experience with the children and school as a whole.

Various types of classroom activities encouraged peer interactions, collaborations, analytical approach, peer evaluation etc. that sustained children’s interactions beyond classrooms and created a better rapport with the teachers and community.

Some of their specific achievements were:

Creation of a better learning environment

No fear of asking questions and of group debates and discussions

Peer interaction helped in better understanding

Peer guidance more effective than teachers’ guidance on many occasions

More space for creative expression

Day-long activities for experimental learning

Learning was fun

Interaction enabled children to put their heads and hearts into effective learning

Thinking and searching process honed

Children were proud to ‘teach’ fellow students

Multi-grade and multi-level grouping patterns helped slow achievers to learn from seniors and peers through more friendly interactions.

Interaction with administratorsOn the whole, the Active School program is unlike the other school improvement initiatives where some experts design the conceptual strategy and orient teachers to implement it. Here teachers have conceptualized the intervention on their own based on a variety of stimulants- teacher training, other innovations under DPEP, and exposure to a wide range of exciting innovative practices in India and abroad. They demonstrated their dream pedagogy by practicing it and proving that it was much more successful than the traditional pedagogy.

This, obviously, inspired the administrators of the area and also the other teachers to use similar practices in the schools of other blocks and clusters of the district. Thus, one successful school activated a whole new pedagogy in 117 schools.

It is good to note that this locally generated school improvement strategy could impress the administrators and managed to reach selected schools across the district. The administrators did not oppose the move and, in fact, promoted the initiative. As long as the DPEP was officially functional, the administration kept on projecting Active Schools as a success story and did not create any hurdles. At the same time, it is important to remember that the administration did not extend the required financial support for strengthening the academic support and monitoring systems. Concern and support on its part could have enhanced the quality of the schools as also the interest of the teachers.

Unfortunately, Active Schools was interpreted as an experiment under DPEP. Its future under SSA is unclear at this stage. The Active Schools, however, is a good example of the capability of teachers to conceptualize, design, implement and nurture


an effective teaching learning process. The challenges of institutionalizing such a process, however, remain.

The program has had a wide-ranging impact over the years.

The level of confidence and learning achievements of students has gone up substantially and have impressed the community members.

The schools have become attractive. There is no dearth of TLM and child-friendly learning activities. The learning environment looks much better than before.

However, the increase in the number periods from eight to 14 detailed activity schedules hasn’t gone down well with the schools. This has affected the quality of classroom practices in some schools. While preparing for the day’s activities, teachers found it difficult to write lesson notes for 14 periods. Obviously, they had misinterpreted each activity to be a period!

The faith on the whole concept of self-learning was low among most teachers and head masters in the initial days of the program. But once the group activities using newly developed self-learning materials started in the classrooms, they gradually realized that the facilitative role of teachers could lead to better learning in the groups.

As against just a handful of children who could do well in the earlier regime, all children could learn better through this program.

The opposition from disciplinarian teachers to a ‘noisy’ classroom also faded away when they saw that children enjoyed learning through group activity and exchange and also liked to change sitting patterns. It dawned upon them that disturbance from such interaction was more an adult problem!

Monitoring was another sore spot. The monitoring personnel were expected to look at the types of classrooms transactions, group activities, use of materials, learning process etc. But most of them did not look at these issues seriously and minutely. This resulted in inadequate information for the core team to assess the real situation and problems of classrooms.

Lack of their own knowledge and inability to answer children’s questions during group activities bothered many teachers. This put them on the offensive.

Adding to their woes was the constant pressure from the administrators to prepare lesson notes even though the program did not require them to do so. The teachers, obviously, did not take very kindly to it.

Consequently, administrators construed teachers’ reactions to the new pedagogical regime as a challenge to their positional hierarchy and classroom discipline. The core team tried to encourage the teachers to experiment with the new methods and see the overall outcomes of such practices.

Over time, when the confidence of the students, both in rural and urban situations, improved, the community members also got more interested in school activities and appreciated the efforts of teachers.

The combined satisfactory responses of the teachers, community and children impressed the administrators who started projecting Active Schools as a success story.


Case Study XII

12. Integrated Learning Improvement Programme – West BengalS H A K T I B R A T A S E N a n d S H R U T I N A G

“Na aami dal neta” (No, I am the group leader). Seven-year-old Chayan Das makes this point to me as I start quizzing the boy sitting next to him. I look up to him and he tells me that borora (adults) are supposed to talk to him before talking to any of “our group members”! I wait. Quietly he finishes his worksheet and, then, helps others “Aagoner kache jaba bhalo na kharab” (Is it good to be near fire?) Chayan tells his neighbour. The boy nods and corrects the answer. Finally, I get talking to the group leader.

The above described scene is from a class in a government school of South 24 Parganas in West Bengal where peer learning and group learning, terms that feature regularly in the list of good classroom practices, exist in reality. But incorporating such practices into regular classroom activity on a large scale, as is the aim of the West Bengal government, needs considerable skill and attitudinal change on the part of the teacher. As Indrani Sen, one of the members of the state resource group, told our visiting team, “Initially, it was like a war to tell people to change their style and allow the children to be among themselves. It was important for classroom transaction to be based on learning tasks rather than teaching tasks.” And the change has come about incrementally, with careful persuasion and demonstration of goals, and from children who learnt amongst themselves.

This is the story about how the idea was spread across the state, as children learnt among themselves and the teachers learnt with them about the possibility of such a system.

IntroductionSeveral efforts to improve the quality of teaching learning in Indian schools have been made in last few years. While many of these efforts have been initiated, or at least, supported outside the system, the Integrated Learning Improvement Program (ILIP) has been initiated by the Government of West Bengal within its existing system. Looking at universalizing elementary education and aiming to improve access, enrolment and retention in the primary education system, ILIP was started in 2002. It succeeded the successful School Learning Improvement Program (SLIP) which ran during the academic year 2001-2002.

In the first year, the program was implemented in standard 1 to ensure that through improved learning practices and teaching material all children achieve the desired competencies and no child lags behind. Also, in the initial stage the schools covered were the ones which had the basic infrastructure of four rooms and four teachers.(See Table 1 for more details) The program was extended in the next year to other schools and in the existing schools where the teachers had been trained classes 2 upwards to support the same cohort of children. Some officials informed us that the program grew


organically in many schools as many teachers started using the new methods in their classes on their own initiative. At the time of the study, the ILIP program was covering students in classes 1 to 4 and active in 5004 schools.

Table 20: Coverage and ExpansionAcademic Year 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06

Name of Program FLIP SLIP ILIP ILIP ILIP ILIPNo. of Districts covered 1 6 13 16 20 20No. of CLRCs covered 2 57 423 434 487 499No. of Schools covered 25 435 3044 3852 4671 5004Grades involved 3rd & 4th 1 1&2nd 1,2,3 1-4 1-4No. of teachers training 25 435 3479 7331 11994 19515No. of students 1250 26000 215329 301107 1058399 1240201No. of VRPS 0 435 1211 1446 2302 2388

Source: SSA West Bengal

Program StrategyThe ILIP program aims to bring quality and equity in a child’s learning from the foundational stage of class 1.This is the outcome of several innovations within the classroom and also within the system under operation.

The core strategy for this program is empowerment and capacity building of the teachers to move away from the monologue style of imparting education prevalent in most government schools and make them realize that all children can progress within a stipulated time, that children learn among themselves and the role of a teacher has to be that of a facilitator.

As part of the program, attempts were made to introduce a number of changes to the classroom atmosphere and use. These included:

Creation of joyful learning situations

Using graded competency-based learning tasks

Focus on group learning and peer learning

Self-learning and self-assessment of children

Focus on child-centric learning tasks

Judicious time and task management

Inculcation of socio-centric ideas

A new set of workbooks based on the existing textbooks and the curriculum of the West Bengal Board of Primary Education were developed to help teachers in changing their classroom practices. Based on the competencies to be achieved by the children as per the textbooks, these learning tasks, as they were called, allowed the teacher the flexibility to match the current learning level and learning speed of the child with the final objectives of the textbook. Scope for innovation and improvisation by the teacher as well as by the student are in built these workbooks and is one of their unique features. According to Moushami, a school teacher, “Using these worksheets impacts the processes in the class.” The worksheets were also used to help develop a working approach of proper time management for the child and the teacher. To achieve this, it


was decided at the developing stage that no worksheet should take more than 20 minutes for an average child to complete.

The worksheets were seen as methods of building self-confidence in the child and it was ensured that 30% of the worksheets should be so easy that 80% of the children in class could deal with them.

Another change at the classroom level introduced by the ILIP program was the engagement of voluntary resource persons from the community to help the teacher and attend to the children who needed extra support.

In addition, the project also envisaged an increased awareness in the community so it would make a demand for quality education. To this end, the Voluntary Resource Persons made regular visits to the child’s house and apprised the parents about their child’s progress in school. According to the teachers we met, the response of the parents was quite encouraging. The attendance of the children did not fall and in some cases, it actually improved. There were also incidences of parents withdrawing their children from tuition classes once they were told about separate remedial education in schools.

Another key strategy of the program is that a systematic and continuous profile of each child is maintained. Both the behavioural and academic achievements of the child are noted which helps the teachers in planning remedial education.

TLM of ILIPOne teacher and 50 plus children, where the relationship between a teacher and the child is mostly didactic, is a reality in many of the classrooms. To overcome this difficulty and allow all children to participate in the class, a set of workbooks aligned to the textbooks were created for the program. The broad framework in which they were made were -

Different children learn in different ways and at different speeds.

Build up knowledge of new things while consolidating her existing knowledge.

The role of teacher has to evolve from merely transacting a set curriculum to one of a planner who can decide how to optimally enhance a child’s capacity to learn. For this, a teacher should be free to use the classroom materials in a variety of ways - oral discussion, practical and written.

The workbook - A list of main topics and the content area of the textbooks was listed to create worksheets. Then, the topics were divided into smaller and simpler learning tasks depending on the levels of the children. For example, children cannot participate in the classroom activities when they enter school in class 1. These books have a lot of poems and simple word games for this stage. More structured learning activities through discussions and worksheets were introduced as they got into the learning mode.

The workbooks allow the teacher the flexibility to match the current learning level and speed of the child with the objectives of the textbook. The teacher can also use them to assess what a child has learned in class.


Assessment and Evaluation A number of timely assessment systems are built into the ILIP program. These include:

Instantaneous evaluation, at the end of each task

Day-to-day recapitulation, at the end of the lesson every day

Weekly/periodic evaluation, at the end of each competency

Terminal evaluation, at the end of a few lessons

Final evaluation, at the end of the academic year

Conducting instantaneous/day-to-day recapitulation is the teacher’s discretion. Academic content in weekly/periodic evaluation is planned uniformly throughout all the ILIP schools. Terminal evaluations are designed and planned by District Research Fellows (DRFs) under the guidance of district officials.

Behavioural success, in addition to academic achievement, is also evaluated through this system. Spontaneity, disciplined activity, cooperative gestures, responsive attitude, responsible working habit etc. are used as measurable parameters for behavioural assessment.

System and StructureA decentralized support system is functioning under the aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, West Bengal (PBRPSUS), to make this micro-level intervention successful.

State Research Fellows (SRFs), apart from state-level official and educational experts, are working exclusively for the program at the State Project Office.

At the district project office, Districts Research Fellows (at least two for districts) are part of the program apart from the district official. In addition, District Quality Management Team (DQMT), comprising 12 members has been engaged. Each member is supposed to provide need-based academic support at Circle Level Resource Centres (CLRCs) and at the school level.

Resource teams, including a circle-level resource team, have also been trained in ILIP at the CLRC level to provide academic support to the school.

Voluntary Resource Persons (VRPs) have been engaged at the school level to:

Facilitate teachers in engaging the student meaningfully in learning tasks

Help to reduce absenteeism

Identify and attend to slow learners

Interact with the community

Finally, Village Education Committees (VEC) and Mother Teacher Associations (MTA) have also been activated and encouraged to take part in improving the schools.

Monitoring SystemThe aim of monitoring is to provide support to functionaries at every level. Occasionally, SRFs conduct workshops to elicit feedback from the district personnel on the basis of which future action can be modified.

Monthly meetings at the district level take place in the presence of SRFs, DRFs and DQMT who are responsible for ILIP schools in one or more CLRCs. Feedback from


these meetings is used to get a clear picture of the project at the grassroots. Fortnightly CLRC workshops are another monitoring mechanism of the program, while the VEC and the MTA get inputs from the community.

Problems and SolutionsThe ILIP program wanted to adapt a constructivist, quality perspective of learning within classrooms that was replicable and scalable. In a typical ILIP classroom, learners must actively construct their own knowledge by connecting new ideas to the existing ones on the basis of their classroom experience. This they do so while interacting with their peers, the teacher-facilitator and their immediate environment.

To augment this process, the teacher must assume a more facilitative role in a learning environment. Allowing children to ask questions and enabling them to relate the newly-constructed knowledge to a larger framework rather than rote learning are important tools that help build a child’s understanding. It is in this zone between what a child knows and what she almost knows that new knowledge is constructed. Such knowledge, often, takes the form of skills that develop eventually. A sensitive teacher is aware of this and is able to engage children through well-chosen class processes.

Therefore in a classroom, any topic or concept is, often, introduced in a big group comprising all the students of a class. Soon, children are encouraged to sit in small groups of five or six each, each of whom get the teacher’s attention. Each group will have group leader. The group members should sit in a circle facing each other as this kind of a seating arrangement is optimal for the learning process.

The teacher chooses a group leader on the following criteria:

A child - girl or boy - who has the ability to work in a group involving the other members.

Group leaders are to be changed every seven or 10 days according to class performance.

Mr Salaam, Deputy SPD, SSA believes “What the child can do in cooperation today, he can do alone tomorrow.” Therefore, he says, “Teachers need to understand their roles as facilitators and not as teachers.”

The evaluation system also has to be in sync with the processes of an ILIP classroom. The age-old examination system does not hold good when the teacher is a facilitator.

To build a strong child-friendly system that ensures quality on a large scale, then, is a challenge. According to Mr Salaam, “The immediate worry is how to get every teacher used to this system on a large scale – and keep her/him motivated.” Functionaries at all levels feel that teachers are the final delivery mechanisms of an education quality improvement program and training them is the only way to ensure quality.

The education department plans to scale up the ILIP intervention this year (2006-07). And to make a success of the program, it is busy making training plans on the basis of its past experiences. These include:

Develop district resource persons, (DRPs) specially trained in the ILIP mode, who can, in turn, train the teachers in every district. State Research Fellows are all set to train the first lot of special DRPs within the next couple of months.

Create another team of resource teachers from among the retired staff. The question, however, is how far would these people be able to carry the ILIP principle forward.


Broadly, the problems that challenge the ILIP program are:

New teachers have to be trained every time there is an effort to scale up. It is always difficult for a teacher in the middle or end of her career to completely change her earlier style and get into the ILIP mode of doing things.

Monitoring is also part of the problem. District representatives have been included in monitoring teams to make sure nobody feels being imposed upon. But there have been instances where the ILIP monitoring team had to step back while on duty.

With over a thousand schools, a sound strategy to monitor them must be in place before the scaling up process begins.

Non-DPEP districts are far more prone to the above problems than DPEP districts. In fact, non-DPEP districts also face non-academic problems a lot more.

Private tuitions are another nuisance to the ILIP program in all districts, irrespective of whether they are formerly DPEP or not.

The solutions have also come from within the system:

Certain senior officials believe that the need, perhaps, is to build a support system rather than a monitoring system. “It’s the ‘human touch’ rather than being didactic, that works wonders.”

To ensure that ‘transmission losses’ are minimized during large-scale training, the SRFs believe that certain basic minimum class processes must be made identical so that they can be replicated in all schools.

Need assessment, prior to training at all locations, can also be immensely useful for customized training. Thanks to this strategy, districts like South 24 Parganas now have a team of motivated teachers who proactively appealed for professional development. They know exactly where they need help.

The education department has, in certain districts, activated the VECs/PTAs/MTAs to tackle such problems. All the above stated bodies have been activated as a result of ILIP's policies to encourage community participation. Mr Tapas Ghosh, a member of the State Research Fellows, says, “People would only talk of school infrastructure, or fund flows in these meetings. ILIP schools ensure that learning issues form the lion’s share of the discussions.”

In the schools we visited, both the good and the problematic, we found parents involved - helping out during midday meals or supervising a construction of a room or in any other way.

Teachers and ILIP MethodThe teachers spoke about ILIP with enthusiasm. “It has given us an opportunity to be students once again,” says Supriti Roy Choudhury, in a school in South 24. “My work pressure has certainly increased in the ILIP mode but I enjoy my classes… I decide my class activities every morning. Earlier it was not so easy to change from what I had decided initially if the children so wanted. Now I have learnt to tackle such situations with ease… Actually, it took me five years to accept the idea of this change…”

Shiela Ghosh in a school in Kolkata feels that ILIP trainings have helped her develop professionally over the years. “It has improved my class transaction skills. Initially I


had doubts about the system. But when I saw my students faring well enough, I willingly accepted ILIP.”

Bishnupada Ghosh, a teacher in Nadia district, says, “I have learnt here what my B.Ed classes could not teach me. I know now for sure that a friendly interaction with children not only ensures learning for them but also for me.”

All these teachers know about the replication plans for this year. They feel “training provides a good support system and ensures we are on track. We all know about the initial reactions that a system like this elicits. But visible success in class and a good support system help transcend mental barriers.”

Some teachers feel that the community mobilization efforts under ILIP have also been of considerable help. “If parents start sharing our concerns - like competency development, ensuring group work, we are relieved to a large extent. It feels so reassuring to have the parents with us.”

Teachers in the Taherpur School in Nadia knew every child’s learning status. More than one teacher was ready to share the details with us. “We know the progress of each child even if we do not take all the classes, because at the end of the day, we all sit and discuss the progress of each child.”

Children and ILIPIf anybody enjoys being a part of ILIP without having to worry or plan for anything, it’s the children!

All the children we interviewed were unanimous in saying, “We all like coming to school every day.”

“I like being a ‘dala neta’. I have to look after everybody… everybody has to listen to what I say,” says six-year-old Arunima Halder.

That’s quite a teacher-like role isn’t it?

“No, our teacher does not do anything that makes us feel bad. She says to the class every day, ‘We are all friends helping each other.’ So I, too, think we must help each other.”

In every school we visited, we gave the children new texts to read, word problems to do and asked thought-provoking questions on EVS studies. We are happy to say children were keen and animated everywhere, and proud to show off their newly acquired skills.


Box XIV: Children energised: the ILIP Classroom in sessionIn Kolkata, we went to a class that was doing a multiplication problem. There are number cards and cards with the operation signs. The whole small group has to decide which number will be in the tens place and which in the units place. And what operation sign will the sum require. Then the sum is done in a perfect team effort.“Look we can do it, we have learnt it…give us any sum and see”. They probably could make out that I was quite interested in what they learn and how they learn. So immediately there are anecdotes flowing from all directions on how difficult sums have been tackled earlier. What one should look for in order to decide upon what operation would the sum need, so on. In a few more minutes I find a lot of worksheets coming onto my lap. The answer portions neatly rubbed clean. “You can try them and if you can do them on your own, you will also learn like us”.My turn to ask more questions. I just comment, “I am sure playing cricket is more interesting than multiplication”.“But, ple...e...ease try and understand you need to know your sums well there also. Otherwise Bulu’s group (some group that bothers a lot of children) cheats with runs”.I must admit maths has applications beyond the classroom.

Source: Shaktibrata Sen and Shruthi Nag, Field notes, March, 2006

Way ForwardWhen thinking about quality in an education program, it is helpful to view both learning outcomes and learning processes as distinct domains although not different in the strictest term. Learning out comes are comparatively easy to measure. The test results chart each competency to be developed and place the child according to her level. They are quite visible for ILIP classrooms. Even so, our own findings clearly show that children have come up to the expected competency levels or very nearly there in schools that have implemented the ILIP method well.

Having said that, teachers still need to fine-tune their notions of scaffolding - a process whereby the perceptions, experiences and needs of those at the receiving end are given their due recognition. Such child-centric orientation, within a learning process, determines its quality. ILIP needs to think, along with its replication plans, ways to transmit the very philosophy it is based upon. Mere replication of a few steps will not help it achieve the notch of quality it had envisaged for itself.


Case Study XIII

13. Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI): The case of KarnatakaS U C H I T H R A V E D A N T H 38

The Education Development Centre (EDC) is an international NGO and the implementing agency of the dot-EDU T4 project being funded by the USAID in India. The T4 project covers three states in India - Karnataka, Chattisgarh and

Jharkhand. This paper is based on the Karnataka experience

IntroductionA few minutes before 12 noon and a bumpy jeep ride later, we arrived at the two-room school at Girigondanadoddi, off Kanakapura road outside Bangalore. The classroom for children of classes 1, 2 and 3 was brightly decorated with charts, flash cards on numbers, alphabets, animals hung in several rows above the children seated on the floor. The handful of children in grey uniforms seemed happy and interacted with us without inhibition.

The teacher quickly gathered the children and hurried them to the adjoining room which was for classes 4 and 5. In all there were 20 children in a 15' x 20' room. The radio was switched on and the class fell silent. The voice on the radio announced the broadcast of the next programme 'Chukki Chinna' which was produced by the Education Development Centre and developed by Madhyam. The next minute all the children burst into song along with the radio, drowning completely the original score. The entire room reverberated with the sound of the children singing the title song of the Chukki Chinna programme.

The broadcast was on malaria that day - part of the series on contagious/epidemic diseases. In the 30-minute episode, 'Akka' the central character, spoke of the types of mosquitoes, how the disease spreads and the precautionary measures to be taken to prevent the spread etc.

Each of the messages was given through a relevant activity. Akka, the radio teacher, instructed the classroom teachers on grouping the children and the role play included in the episode. Important facts and specific points were repeated and reiterated through out the broadcast. Children were, then, asked questions by Akka and were encouraged to answer, by reinforcing that they need not worry if they gave wrong answers. This was followed by a song on contagious diseases which the children repeated after Akka. At the end of the episode, there was an action plan, follow-up activities, homework and project work.

From the title song which was set to a folk tune and use of a local language to prepare the teachers’ handbook that included the pre and post broadcast activities - the care taken to put together these episodes was evident. The meticulous planning reflected in the detailed instructions to teachers and students, the calculated pauses given to allow

38 The assistance provided by D.L.Kavita and Sarita Deshpande during the field visits have been very valuable.


time for following the instructions and completing the activity, the matching of activity to the subject being discussed, the songs, and the pre and post broadcast activities.

We were told that the teachers were given the handbook in advance so that they were well prepared for the broadcast. The actual dates of the broadcast for each episode were predetermined and printed in the handbook. In case of sudden changes, due to a cricket match or child census for example, the broadcast dates were changed and schools informed of the new schedule.

The language used was simple and easy to understand. The choice of characters - Akka, Appu, Putti, and Babu – are common names used across the state and children easily identify with them.

Objectives of dot-EDU T4 projectThe three-year dot-EDU T4 project aims at

1. providing access and enhancing equity for girls and the rural poor through carefully planned applications of digital and broadcasting technologies

2. introducing high-quality, activity-based instruction into learning environments

3. providing teachers with in-service training to improve content and methods, using media - interactive radio, mobile video et al

4. making the classroom environment more attractive to students and, consequently, increase enrolment, attendance and retention of children in schools

5. enhancing learning levels by improving the classroom environment through innovative teaching methods

6. developing innovative pedagogy and technology-based tools to be used in the classroom

7. getting teachers to use tools that have been developed locally

What is IRI?The IRI program is a distance education program for students of classes 1 to 5 consisting of instruction in Math, Science and Social Studies that are delivered at government primary schools via radio instruction.

Why Radio?

Radio is an affordable medium for mass instruction that can reach both students and teachers. Designed thoughtfully, it can cater to local area-specific needs and involve them in selecting problem areas for discussion. The disadvantaged groups who may not have access to face-to-face training (in case of teachers) and learning (in case of students) sessions can be reached by interactive radio instruction. Besides, radio has easy and extensive reach and can also contribute towards the government’s aim of universalizing primary education.

Radio Instruction in Karnataka


Radio as a medium of instruction was first used in Karnataka in 1964 in two programs called Parimala and Nandana Vana for primary and secondary schools. In 1995, the Bandani program for high school students and in 2000 the Keli Kali programs for primary school students were aired (Vandita Sharma, Strides, Jan 2006, No. 1). Chukki Chinna, the IRI program under the T4 project, began broadcast during the academic year 2004-05, in collaboration with the SSA and the DSERT. The IRI program had the advantage of learning from some of its early precursors, especially from Keli Kali.

The audience for a radio learning program in Karnataka had been already created by these earlier interventions. The difference, however, between the IRI and the earlier programs is the level of interactivity. The IRI has been designed to engage students and teachers completely during the 30-minute episode. As the name suggests, the IRI promotes interactive activity-based learning within the classroom. It aims at creating an environment for interaction between the teachers and the students and also among the students. It endeavours also at attacking the hard spots in teaching and learning. Its chief goal is to enhance teachers’ skills through innovative and interactive methods, and proper utilization of TLM.

The strategyThe strategy to achieve the program objectives consists of implementing and coordinating a combination of technological tools, media, pedagogy and human resources - all of which reinforce and support each another.

T4 has been developing tools to produce, deliver and measure educational quality on a large scale.

The strategy, essentially, comprises:

Bringing together the different stakeholders and partners, engaging them in ongoing dialogue and building the network of resources.

Developing learning and teaching technology for mass delivery to classrooms across the state. A needs’ assessment was done through audience research to identify specific requirements and critical areas of work and hard spots.

Training of teachers in pedagogical methods to improve classroom interaction.

Applying interactive, child-centred, activity-based, learning methodologies through the IRI.

Implementing scientifically designed curricula based on research and hard spots.

Community involvement to ensure better enrolment, attendance and retention, and also support for school education for children.

Monitoring and evaluation at regular intervals to get feedback and make the necessary changes in project planning and implementation.

The project staff draws the master plans, local teachers write the scripts and local organizations (on contract) produce the programs.


Relationship with the Government The state government has been EDC’s most significant partner in the planning, development and implementation of IRI. As the delivery infrastructure is critical to the ability of the program to reach hard-to-reach groups, the project has worked closely with the government to build delivery mechanisms throughout the state. Education department officials at the levels of state, district, block and school have been actively engaged in the program, right from its inception to implementation.

The EDC has provided and installed one digital video recording studio and one digital audio recording studio at the DSERT premises which will be managed by the centre during the project period. All the programs are developed and produced at this facility, through technical assistance from and collaboration with local NGOs. The facility would be handed over to the Department of Primary and Secondary Education, GoK, at the end of the project period.

It was decided that the programs would be aired by the FM and AM stations of All India Radio; and the SSA would bear the broadcast fee. The project has provided radio sets to the pilot schools. The running cost, including the provision of batteries, would be covered by the schools and through support from community wherever available.

The DSERT has played an active and supportive role by providing resource persons, training facilities and taking up the monitoring of the program. Teachers’ guide and handbook printed by the EDC was disseminated through the DSERT.

Teachers and TrainingThe IRI program targets two sets of audiences - teachers and students. As already mentioned, the intervention was envisaged as a training tool for teachers so that they could add zing to the classroom environment with better teaching methods – and draw children towards school and learning.

Clearly, the teacher remains central to the success of the success of the program. Even though the IRI is means of interactive instruction, the interaction is not live- between the radio instructor and the students. These are pre recorded programmes with the teacher as the bridge between the radio lesson and the child - and the intervention requires his/her full participation and management skills. The teacher must have read the handbook and have the necessary materials ready before the broadcast. Similarly, he/she must follow up with post-broadcast activities to reinforce learning from and derive the maximum benefit of the program.

Teachers have been involved in the project from the initial stages of audience research, identification of hard spots, script writing, development of teachers’ handbook/guide, implementation, and also monitoring. They were trained to perform each of these tasks. The cascade mode was adopted for training in which a few teachers were selected for training as master trainers who would, in turn, train the other teachers.

Community ParticipationCommunity participation remains the weakest link in the project. The involvement of the community has been minimal, except for the first-round orientation to the project concept. In the existing scheme of things School Development and Management Committees, parents and the community are expected to be involved in the


management and running of the schools. Therefore, the IRI also envisaged their involvement and identified community outreach volunteers called Sikshana Sahayogis, who would be the link between the school and the community. Post-broadcast activities are designed so that the learning is also adopted by the children’s families. But there is, yet, no clear evidence of any systematic involvement of the community in these activities. However, monitoring by the BRC/CRC indicates that there is scope for involving the community in the future.

CoverageDuring the pilot phase, the IRI program targeted 300 primary schools in four districts in Karnataka. These were spread across Deodurg in Raichur, Sedam in Gulbarga, Chamarajanagar, and Bangalore urban district. By the end of the first year, findings from a mid-term review (Jeanne Moulton, Jan 2005) led the Department of Education to scale and cover all the government primary schools in the state – 50,000 in all. As a result, the IRI reached all the schools during the academic year 2005-06.

Why Can IRI Be Called a ‘Good Practice’The intervention has certain characteristics that make it one of the good practices adopted for primary school education.

Extensive reach: covers all government primary schools across the state.

Easy, affordable access to well-researched standardized teaching and learning material across all schools and teachers. The programs are designed in a way that promotes scientific attitude among children and teachers.

Advance provision of a handbook, with time table, for all teachers to aid preparation and optimization of the radio lesson; handbook serves as guide during the radio lesson.

Single module addresses the dual audience of teachers and students to serve as training program for the former and learning program for the latter. Has achieved multi-directional gains – enhancement of teachers’ skills, learning levels of students and student participation. IRI practices carried to non-IRI teaching time with positive results. The methodologies can be used for other classes as well.

Attractive format. All activities such as songs, exercises, role plays and other project work directly linked to the lesson taught, thus, supplementing the teacher’s knowledge and skills.

Takes into account multi-grade teaching requirements in the Indian school system; is based on local knowledge and needs; is child and teacher-centric.

Involvement of the state government and education department from inception to implementation. Participatory and inclusive. Knowledge base and capacities created within the education department for long-term benefit

Builds on (a) existing skills, knowledge and training of teachers; (b) existing use of mass media (radio) as medium of instruction ( Keli Kali already well accepted in state)

Radio teacher serves as a model for teachers setting standards for classroom interaction, student-teacher relationship, attitude towards girls, approach to teaching and learning etc.


Encourages and supports the inclusion of girls and marginalized groups. Attempts to bridge the gender gap and address gender stereotypes through increased participation of girls in classroom activity and portrayal of girls as assertive, intelligent, etc

ImpactThe impact of the IRI program has been well documented during the three rounds of external evaluation carried out in the first and second years. The mid-term review (Moulton), evaluation report (Royer), and The Teacher Foundation report (2005) broadly show the following:

Increased student participation, utilization of the IRI methods during non-IRI teaching time enhanced learning among IRI students, increased attendance and better levels of teachers’ knowledge.

Adaptation of activities, songs, and exercises to the match curricular needs.

Evidence of a large uncounted shadow audience among both schools and individuals. This created a demand among non-IRI schools for the intervention.

Encouraging response from the teachers who say students’ learning levels have improved.

Definite improvement in teachers' classroom practice in all categories of pedagogy.

Transfer of good practices demonstrated in IRI schools.

Monitoring

Program monitoring is always a problem. Internal monitoring is rarely unbiased and external monitoring is not easily accepted.

ChallengesClasses with a very large number of children are difficult to handle. All students cannot participate in the activities. On the other hand, a very small class is not a good idea either. The optimum number for an IRI class is 25-40.

Space is a limitation in many schools. All activities required during pre and post broadcast cannot be performed in limited classroom space.

Children miss the radio lesson when the teacher is absent. Some times, the lesson is handled by a teacher who may not be sufficiently prepared.

It is difficult to ensure that all teachers use the intervention to the optimum. Monitoring and maintaining quality of implementation on such a large scale remains a challenge.

Post-broadcast activities are difficult to follow up.

The teacher has to closely follow the instructions of the radio teacher and implement the instructions during the 30 minutes of the radio lesson. She/he does not have the freedom to handle the class at her pace.

Teacher motivation is difficult to ensure. Those interested and motivated will utilize the program optimally. However, maintaining high levels of motivation on a daily basis is the biggest challenge.


As of now, at least three programs are on air every day - Keli Kali, EDUSAT and IRI. The teacher could be weighed down by the effort to carry out all of these programs effectively as the state is investing large sums of money in them. It is important, then, that the IRI serves to lessen this burden by enabling them to effectively and efficiently handle classroom teaching.

How does one ensure listening and learning in the classroom?

How does one ensure community participation and its future implementation, particularly after the project period is over? Ownership by the community is crucial.

ConclusionThe case study demonstrates the effectiveness of IRI as an instructional tool. Used optimally, it can contribute to creating a better learning environment and attendance rates, higher learning gains and improved teacher skills – as it has done in Karnataka. It has also built collaborative relationships with the state government to ensure the sustainability of the initiative beyond the project period. Capacities have been built within the education department to carry forward the program with suitable adaptations as and when required. The pilot phase of the program was periodically evaluated and monitored, which needs to be continued to ensure optimum utilization.

The community support component needs strengthening. Capacity building of the staff needs to be continued for the program to evolve continuously and retain its novelty.


Case Study XIV

14. Strengthening Science Education: Agastya International FoundationR A S H M I S H A R M A

IntroductionThe Agastya Foundation, headquartered in Bangalore, was set up as a charitable trust in 1999. It works in the area of science education for middle and high school children, and fosters creative thinking and problem-solving skills among vulnerable and disadvantaged children. The strategy, as articulated by the organization, focuses on making education:

Fun, engaging and interesting

Creative and hands on

Accessible to children from the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities

Useful and relevant for their current and future context

Visible to parents and community members

The aim is to shift from rote-based learning to practical learning. Scientific concepts are broken into simple, doable experiments, and low-cost models and materials are developed with the help of which children are encouraged to make experiments on their own. The Agastya model rests on the belief that children learn better and faster by doing and experimenting rather than listening to lectures or simply reading from textbooks etc. The central goal is to create an education dissemination model that is cost effective, scalable and replicable so that creative thinking and problem solving become strategies in the education of the poorest children in government schools, and not a prerogative only of the well off.

The organization started off by establishing a Science Centre at Kuppam (Gudivanka Science Centre) in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh. Over time, it developed other strategies such as mobile laboratories, science fairs and teacher-training programs. These programs, executed in collaboration with the government, now encompass two districts in AP and four in Karnataka. The intensity of the interventions varies, depending on the availability of resources and agreements with the district administrations. As per the Annual Report of the organization, the Foundation has reached it various programs to 500,000 children and 30,000 teachers in 2004-05.

The Organization The management committee of Agastya comprises scientists, management experts and people who have worked in the government. It is backed by well-qualified and experienced people. It has also established linkages with scientists from the Homi Bhabha Centre and the Indian Institute of Science. Twelve highly-qualified scientists act as resource persons for the program. Instructors are recruited with care and trained


by well-known scientists even though the salaries are small (instructors are paid Rs. 5000 per month).

Funding comes from corporate donors in India and abroad, the government as well as international funding agencies. Besides, Agastya is able to tap a great deal of free resource support. For instance, a former Indian Forest Service Officer and Environment Secretary in the Karnataka government, with his extensive knowledge of the flora of the region, have helped Agastya develop an environmental park around the science centre at Kuppam.

Besides, the organization has innovative management capacities because of which it is able to negotiate with government on the one hand and raise funds from the corporate sector and other agencies on the other. It is on a fairly steep growth path where it constantly tries out new strategies and new projects.

But, a surprising limitation of the organization is its lack of awareness about past experiences in improving elementary education i.e. what has been attempted, what has or has not worked etc. Though individuals in Agastya have experience with a wide set of other organizations, systematic linkages with other organizations working in education are not visible. Consequently, past experience is not readily accessible for future planning.

The main interventions of the organization are described briefly below.

Interventions 1.Gudivanka Science Centre, The science centre is strategically located at the junction of three states i.e. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. There are four buildings on the campus that have low-cost laboratories. On display here are simple, but interesting, models and experiments that enable students to understand the basic principles of astronomy, optics, electricity, magnetism etc., conduct simple experiments in chemistry and explore models that represent various parts of the body. The centre has its own mini-bus that fetches children of the neighbouring schools of one taluk for the day to conduct experiments at the laboratory. The biggest laboratory is housed in a hall of around 2000 square feet. Right at the entrance, there is a complete model of the solar system, around 5 feet by 5 feet, in which all the planets and their satellites have been created in proportion to the real distances, angles etc, -through which children can understand the solar system, various planets and their moons and satellites. They can also move the model to see how day and night and seasons are created. The model makes a powerful impression, and is not easily forgotten. Around the laboratory there are tables on which low cost equipment i.e. various models and experiments are kept. These enable students to understand the basic principles of astronomy, optics, electricity, magnetism etc., conduct simple experiments in chemistry and explore models that represent various parts of the body.The science laboratory has three instructors (science teachers) and an assistant who guide the visiting students. The lab has its own mini-bus that is used to fetch children of the neighbouring schools of one taluk for the day to conduct experiments at the laboratory. At the time of the researcher’s visit, students of class five had come from a school situated 3 kilometres away, and were engaged in an exercise of making a simple paper game that showed the food cycle in nature. After finishing this game, they clustered around the model of the solar system, naming various planets, explaining how seasons change and so on.


The estimated expenditure of creating such a laboratory is Rs.10-12 lakh. This does not take into account however, the enormous expertise that has gone into creating the equipment. There is also an annual wear and tear approximating 10-15 % of the cost of the equipment. The rest of the campus has been developed as an ecological park. The area has been protected using several water conservation techniques. When the project was started, the land was totally bare, but now there it has grass as well as several trees and bushes. Two hundred new species of plants have begun to grow in this park. A hundred species have regenerated on their own simply because the area has been protected from animals by digging trenches. Another hundred have been planted. In earlier years, as there is usually no grass during the summer, villagers were allowed to cut the grass growing on the campus to feed their cattle. They have also seen how planting trees, new water conservation methods etc. have long-term beneficial consequences.Several local medicinal plants that were used earlier, but are being replaced by modern medicines, have been planted. The attempt is to make people aware of the value of these local medicinal plants, so that traditional knowledge is not lost. The Siddha system of medicine i.e. the traditional south Indian system of medicine is sought to be preserved. Children who come to the campus are helped to understand the health effects of various plants. Since these are local plants. Children have some idea about them and can use the knowledge that they gain effectively. On top of a hillock, three huge figures of a man, woman and child have been installed. The plan is to sketch out the internal organs and on each organ plant various medicinal plants that are beneficial to different organs on the body.The entire area is being developed as a kind of biological park from which the people may buy plants and also educate themselves about the ecology as well as health. The maintenance expenditure of this park is between Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 50,000 per year.

There are several plans for the future, such as a hostel for teachers and students from all across the world. This is an activity through which funds will be raised. Individuals outside the country are already showing interest in the science centre. Sale of plants to villagers is also envisaged. Another plan is to train young women to grow addition plants like aloe and asparagus that are in high demand abroad and help them add to the family income.

2. Mobile lab

A very popular concept, Agastya’s mobile lab program works in collaboration with the local authorities. The district authorities in Cuddapah and Chittoor, for example, have signed a MoU with Agastya under which the Foundation incurs the fixed costs of the program while the former meet the running costs from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan funds. The cost borne by the government comes to Rs. 3.10 lakh per annum per van, of which Rs. 2.60 lakh is the running cost and 0.50 lakh is paid towards salaries of instructors.

There are 14 mobile laboratories, each of which is housed in a van fitted with tables and boxes. The low-cost equipment consists of models that can be manipulated by the children to conduct various experiments. Some vans also have two computers for children to learn. . The self-sufficient mobile laboratory conducts interactive science lessons in schools that it visits as per a pre-designed program. The experiments are related to the course content of the class, so that teachers of the particular schools find these helpful in their teaching. The MEO prepares and gives a schedule and route map of the mobile van to Agastya. There are 686 upper primary schools and 522 high


schools i.e. a total of nearly 1200 schools to be covered by four mobile laboratories in Chittoor. This means that one school can be covered barely once during the year.

3. Science fairs

Agastya organizes science fairs where children of the host school, called young instructors, explain experiments to the visiting audience that comprises children and teachers from neighbouring schools. Typically, two instructors from the Foundation arrive a day in advance at the host school and train teachers as well as children to demonstrate and explain various experiments. The teachers who had participated in these fairs came across as very enthusiastic about the latter. They are filled with pride to see children of their schools explaining experiments. Students had been able to conduct several experiments at the fairs that they could not in the classrooms.

4. Teacher training

Agastya also holds teacher-training camps to train teachers in the experimental science teaching that it seeks to foster. Thirty such programs have been held in the last two years. Well-known scientists are often invited to these two-day camps where they introduce teachers to new concepts. Travel money to teachers comes from the SSA funds, and the Foundation incurs the remaining expenditure. Notwithstanding the fact that Agastya’s work with teachers has not been as successful as the activities they have conducted directly with children, some teachers have written letters of appreciation saying how much the programs enriched them.

Relationship with the GovernmentThe Agastya Foundation attempts to complement the existing school system and collaborate with the government/local administration. For instance, Agastya set the ball rolling in Chittoor district when it requested the district collector to issue an order to enable school children to visit the science centre in Kuppam. Similarly with the mobile lab program which works closely with the district administration. Mutual appreciation and understanding underscore the program. In Chittoor, the DC as well as the Additional Project Coordinator, SSA, has appreciated the presence of a creative, committed organization as Agastya, and viewed it as a resource for taking up those programs for quality improvement as these were difficult to design and implement within government.

Relationship with Teachers Unlike some organizations that seek to improve the quality of education in government schools mainly by working with teachers, Agastya reaches out directly to children through the science centre, mobile laboratories and science fairs. This follows from its understanding that unlike younger people who are far more receptive, it is tough to convert older people. Teachers may appreciate some activities, but have not actively participated in them. There have been instances when teachers have merely sat and watched or, at best, took notes during a mobile van classes instead of participating in the exercise.


Impact The impact of the interventions of the Agastya Foundation needs to be understood at two levels: (a) the impact on children with whom these activities are conducted, and (b) the overall impact on the education system.

Visits to schools where some interventions had taken place revealed that the strategies were effective in the classroom. Children learnt and enjoyed the experience. Even a single visit of children to the science centre or of the mobile van to a school has considerable effect on the learners. This validates the basic strategy of learning by doing and affirms that the Foundation has evolved creative and workable ways of teaching and learning science.

Agastya has also begun a systematic study of the impact of the mobile lab. Two schools have been identified for this study - one, is a ‘control’, non-intervention school and the other is the experimental school, where the mobile van visits twice a week. The study attempts to identify changes in children’s excitement, curiosity and aspirations as a consequence of the intervention.

A visit of the mobile lab to a school or even children’s visit to the science centre, which forms the experience of an average school, remains a ‘sporadic’ event rather than a substantial shift in science education. While some argue that one mobile lab visit that lasts six to seven hours is actually equivalent to as many visits, interviewee teachers stressed the need for better frequency for a substantial change. They felt that bi-monthly visits were a must to integrate lab learning with the entire process of curriculum transaction. The thinness of the interventions arises from the fact that Agastya has limited resources (especially human resources), and district authorities are keen on maximum coverage, and the organization also sees the need for large coverage for maximum impact.

The impact of the interventions also needs to be viewed in the overall context of government schools, where the standards of science teaching can be problematic. Sometimes, even teachers are conceptually unclear. A mobile lab instructor admitted that while children could understand basic things such as the difference between domestic and wild animals, they found it difficult to comprehend principles of science, in spite of the very high quality of instruction in the mobile lab. Better standards of science teaching in government school would lead to substantial benefits even from brief interventions, but this is not the case in most government schools. Therefore, interventions, too, have limited impact.

So, instead of engaging fully with the government system, Agastya has chosen to reach out to a large number of children through its own interventions (mobile laboratory etc) where its own instructors do the training, teaching etc. This enables the Foundation to retain control over the quality of its inputs which would be difficult if it attempted to work through the government system.

On the other hand, this model limits the impact of the organizations’ activities. Building capacities of government teachers and resource persons would mean much larger, more sustainable impact, albeit of lesser quality.

Even so, Agastya’s interventions have led to slow, small changes:

While many teachers may remain passive in the training programs or during mobile lab lessons etc, there are others who use these opportunities to learn.

Several teachers said they wanted to have similar equipment in their schools so that they could use it to explain things to students.


Interestingly, though the Agastya Foundation did not have very close links with DIET at Karvettinagar in Chittoor district, the latter has recently published a book of experiments for classes 6 and 7. This may have been inspired by a manual of experiments of the Foundation.

Ideas about low-cost buildings are being picked up in the district from the science centre in Kuppam and the district authorities are thinking about the idea of creating a learning centre on similar, if smaller, lines in each taluk.

ChallengesThe Agastya Foundation has created some very effective strategies for science teaching that resonate well with children and create a good learning environment. These strategies are worth replicating, and could go a long way towards improving science education in government schools. However, if such replication is attempted, there are several issues that would need to be thought through with care and, in fact, replication on a larger scale would involve new types of initiatives. Three broad areas of work are identified below:

1. The problem of spreading out interventions too thinly would need to be addressed. At present, the frequency of interventions depends upon the availability of resources and what the district administration considers appropriate coverage. However, the question of frequency would have to be worked out as per pedagogic needs and impact, so that it is a regular aspect of the teaching learning process.

2. Strategies and initiatives need to be embedded more firmly within the government to magnify the impact and also to sustain it in the long run. This would necessarily involve a far more rigorous strategy for capacity building of teachers as well as resource persons. Working out the nature of such capacity-building exercises would be a substantial task.

3. In terms of costs, there would not be too many financial difficulties, as keeping costs low is a part of the organizations’ strategy, and as per the calculations made by the organization the per child cost is less than 50 cents i.e. less than Rs. 25. It is also not difficult to envisage the creation of science centres at district and, even, block levels, provision of mobile laboratories, organization of science fairs etc. However, it would be difficult to replicate the very high quality of human resources tapped by the organization. While difficult, this is not impossible. Past experience has shown that fairly complex and innovative programs can be carried out in the government by identifying the right people from within the system and allowing them autonomy to work. However, creating appropriate structures and selecting the right people would be quintessential.


15. Skill based Education, Chandigarh

Binay Pattanayak

Chandigarh with a heterogeneous metropolitan population has a number of migratory groups consisting of daily wagers and labourers settled in slum areas and colonies located along its periphery. Household surveys showed that a significant percentage of out of school children are from these habitations. For the parents of these children education is the last priority as making an earning for living is their main focus. Therefore, bringing these children to school and providing them relevant education was a big challenge and necessitated diversified approaches and strategies.

Objectives of the skill based education initiatives:

Keeping this ground situation in view, the Education Department in Chandigarh UT designed a plan of action to attract the students towards school, give them some skill based education for their empowerment and in the process enhance their learning achievement as well. After studying the socio-economic patterns, which emerged in the survey report and feedback from the heads of the institutions from the schools located in rural and slum areas, it was decided to introduce modified Vocational Education in specifically identified schools where there is a large concentration of out of school children. Thus, skill courses were introduced in slum and rural areas as an alternative and innovative education in the UT under SSA with the following objectives:

1. To address the core need of daily wage earners by offering Work Education and to bring working children to school.

2. To explore and adopt the popular skill areas leading to economic empowerment of children.

3. To retain these children in school by maintaining sustainability of the interest of the students through various skill courses.

Target Group:

The target group for skill courses includes out of school children enrolled in the alternative and innovative education (AIE) centres, yet to be enrolled out of school children and regular school children. Till date 400 such students are getting benefited from the skill courses.


Case Study XV

122

Planning for introduction of skill courses:

Identification of skills to be taught

Skill Courses have been identified in consultation with the concerned parents, PTA members, Principals/ Heads of these schools and also on the basis of observation and knowledge of the area. Meetings were held with the parents of these children, who are primarily daily wagers, to seek the demand of skill courses from them. A variety of skills such as tailoring, machine embroidery, knitting, mehendi, pottery, hairdressing, candle making, book binding, plumbing, cycle repair, brick laying, pickle and jam making etc were introduced in 7 Government High schools.

These skill courses have been designed by the Department and schools carefully, through a series of consultations at different levels. Every year the UT authorities explore the colonies where more and more children of the vulnerable groups study and they encourage the concerned school authorities to design plans for skill based education and identify suitable skills, which can be promoted in the school. Once the school finalises its proposal the UT authorities built their capacity by exposing them to the good practices and provide them the resources to initiate the work.

The Government also runs 21 vocational courses at +2 level in 21 Sr. Secondary schools. The UT authorities facilitate interaction and mutual learning between the teachers of these schools with the teachers in the schools running the skill courses. This enables the teachers on both sides to learn from each other’s experience and innovations.

Designing the Curriculum

For each Skill Course a curriculum for 100 hours of teaching has been worked out with a detailed month wise plan to be followed through out the academic year. This makes it easy for the instructor to follow the steps of each activity methodically with some clear picture of the final outcome. A wide range of teaching learning materials have been developed by the UT authorities to build the capacity of the teachers and students. They are using the course materials used for +2 level vocational courses for building the capacity building of teachers in the schools. For the school level activities the schools in consultation with the UT authorities have developed curriculum and syllabi for each skill course.

Box XV Glimpses from the syllabi for different courses

a. Fine arts includes…… What is Art, Types of Art, Types of Medium, Water, Crayons, Oil Colours, Pencil Shading, etc., Oil painting, Pot painting, Papier Mache, Making of Greeting Cards,…..

b. Candle making includes….. Different types of Moulds, Detaching and Attaching of Moulds, Making of Big and Small Candles, Making of Floating Candles, Making of Gel Candles,……

c. Plumbing includes…..Sewage, Drainage, & Water Supply, System Information, Different types of fittings such as elbow use, plug use, nipples, U type fitting, L type fitting, …….

d. Pottery includes….Pot making, Diya making, making of colourful and painted diyas, making of textured pots,….

e. Stitching includes….Simple stitching, Cross stitching, how to apply buttons, zips, kaza etc,. sewing of clothes of different types such as apron, frocks, ladies suits, gents pyjama, pillow cover etc.

f. Knitting includes….What is knitting, Making of sweaters by hand, machine weaved sweaters, making of baby suits,….


g. Hair cutting includes….Cutting of hair, shaving beard, massaging of face, body and head, plucking and threading, …..

h. Mehendi art includes…..Preparation of Mehendi, Application of Mehendi on head, feet, Types of designs like simple, Arabic etc.

i. Paper bag making includes…..Material required for paper bag making, Making of small paper bags, Making of gift bags, Making of hanging bags,…..

j. Soft Toy making includes….Cutting of clothes for soft toy making, sewing of pieces of clothes, Making of different animals like teddy bear, dog, cat, duck, fish, etc.

k. Peecko includes….Peecko of sarees, Peecko of Duppattas…

l. Embroidery includes …..What is embroidery, Types of Embroidery, Embroidery on suits and duppattas,

m. Flower making includes….Making of paper duplex flowers, Making of ribbon flowers, Making of Arcandi flowers, Making of net flowers .

n. Tie & Dye includes….Tie & Dye of duppattas, tie & dye of suits, different steps of tie & dye.

o. Book binding includes….Materials to be used in book binding, Steps involved in book binding, binding of books, registers, copies etc.

p. Mukaish includes…..Simple Mukaish of duppattas, and suits, Designed Mukaish…

Flexibility in selection of Skill Course

Children are free to choose any skill course of their own interest and are allowed to switch over to the other course after he/she has attained perfection in one area. For example, in candle making and hair cutting many children, mostly boys keep on changing their practice. Similarly girls keep on changing their practice in the area of tie & dye, painting, flower making, etc. They feel that they can gain from such learning if their learning domain is multi pronged and professionally enriching. They see big potential in such practices from the economic point of view. But the school ensures that they do not jump from one skill to another without acquiring the skills well. Hence on the whole children do not go into more than two skills learning over the year. This is important as the school tries to maintain quality in the learning process.

Flexibility in coming to school:

School timings for working children have been made flexible and are fixed as per the convenience of children.

Funding Norms for Skill Courses:

Funds are made available to the school heads offering skill courses under AIE component. The salary for the instructor is Rs.4, 500. In addition the school is given a grant for the purchase of raw material and equipment. For service-oriented courses such as mehendi application, hair cutting, cycle repair, etc. the requirement of raw material is minimal. However, a one time grant of Rs. 30, 000 is given to courses needing heavy equipment such as sewing machines, plumbing appliances, welding sets, etc.

Enhancing interest and facilitating Socio economic empowerment:

This strategy of providing skill-based education in schools is a new concept in elementary education. Very soon it bore fruits and the message spread as the children now started looking forward to coming to school. Children were even allowed to take back few small products such as


artificial flowers, candles, paper bags, etc. as an example to show their creations to their parents, which gave the children a sense of achievement and feeling of utility for the parents.

The products made by these children are sold and some share of money thus earned is distributed to these students as an incentive. Various modalities such as exhibitions, melas are used for sale of products including sales from the homes of those students confident of taking up the vocation independently. On the whole, the response of the schools and their children has been very satisfying and the quality of products has impressed people from all circles. The number of schools under this scheme is increasing each year as new schools struggling to address the needs of the children of vulnerable groups are finding it as a highly successful mode of extending quality elementary education to such students. In the Chandigarh UT more than 20 schools are now promoting such skill-based activities.

While learning such activities in the school, children get free food or refreshment. Also they are provided with some of the materials that they develop. But once they acquire the skills they contribute to the school fund. Whatever money is generated through such exhibition cum sale is used for furthering the resources and activities in the school in the coming days.

However it may also be noted that children never stop with this. Many of them sit in the markets on their own to earn along with their studies at school. One child through such activities contributed to his father’s operation and sister’s marriage. On this point the school authorities agree that someway or other it contributes to child labour. At the same time they feel constrained when children on their own initiate such activities beyond the school hours to help their family.

This is a critical question and needs to further to be explored and socio-educationally balanced so that children are not over stretched in the name of skill based incomes. School authorities say that the number of such children is very less and should not be encouraged. At the same time they have the fear that, if such activities of children of the vulnerable groups are forcefully stopped, then it may naturally lead to socially unproductive activities like stealing and may be counter productive. Hence they keep on counseling the children to acquire the skills to perfection along with their academic achievements so that they remain more focused.

Also it has been proved that such activities have contributed to the enhancement of learning achievement of all these children. The school authorities feel that such activities creates in them interest in education and they like to study their books along with their acquisition of professional skills.

Monitoring and assessment system

In this system the students are taught by the teachers and the outside professionals regarding the procedure and the techniques involved in the specified courses. Regular monitoring is done by the teachers- how children are handling the material, what method they are utilising, what precautions they are taking, etc. In this way, the learning progress is monitored and the students are trained.

One important aspect of this activity is that during each activity students and their teachers work together. This enables each child to learn from the teacher and peers and a good learning environment is maintained. Another important side of the practice is that here monitoring is not done just to find faults, but it works to keep track of the overall quality. Unlike the examinations in schools here everybody assesses each other’s progress and helps her or him in the process. This is the true spirit of learning. And it does not end here. The real test of learning comes when the learners including the teacher face the market where their quality is assessed by the society. Hence they feel challenged to improve the quality of product at par or better than market products.


The teacher assesses the student’s progress in the oral as well as in practical aspects. The students are given oral tests on the method of making the specified trade. Then each student has to demonstrate practically what he/she has learnt.

Looking at the programme through the experience of a Government Girls High School, Chandigarh

Starting the programme

The skill based education programme started in the Government Girls High school in 2004. The school campus includes nursery room, music room, computer room, yoga room, science lab, library, etc. having about 30 rooms including staff room. The school runs in two shifts. In the first shift children of nursery classes and classes V to X take part in the school activities. In the second shift students of classes I to IV and the students under the EGS and AIE scheme attend the classes.

There are about 75 teachers in the school. Under the SSA there are 21 teachers (JBT and TGT) and 9 contract teachers. The rest 45 teachers are regular teachers in the school.

Inspired by the call of the President of India to “create employment and not seek it”, the HM of the school decided to take up the challenge of reaching out to out of school children in the neighbourhood of her school and decided to approach SSA for support and also to get ideas on how to go about it.

The profile of the children the school tried to reach out to and retain in school included sweepers, rag pickers, children attached to small shop owners, etc. Many of these children and their families have been picked up by the police on suspicion of petty theft. Most of the children are reported to be totally illiterate and first generation learners.

The major objectives of the innovation in this school include the following.

To enhance the attendance of students in the school

Promote the call of the President “Create employment; don’t seek it”

Reduce the stealing habits and drug addiction habits of students in the slums through regular hands on activities and confidence building

Build confidence among parents for quality education and their empowerment

Enhance the learning achievement of students through regular support

Give a direction to education through skill based activities in school and society (earn while you learn)

Operationalising the skill based learning programme

Getting teachers on board

The first task was to get the support of the teachers. Teachers interested in helping with the programme were identified. The issue of skill courses was discussed and the interested teachers, who were ready to teach, were identified. The contract teachers under SSA found this as a good chance to learn skills through the regular activities in the school and sustain them in future as a source of income. They are not afraid now regarding the job security. They feel that even if they lose their teaching job tomorrow, then they can still live with dignity through such type of activities as a way of their sustenance.


A Junior school teacher who is also the Candle making guide in the school says,” I am here to teach. When the skill courses started I thought I can do some good thing for the poor children and for the betterment of society. And I learnt the art of candle making from an expert who came to our school to teach us. Now the interest of the students in candle making has increased so much after we started teaching various techniques related to the work. During each Diwali, we organise a stall on behalf of the school in which the products of the school are displayed and sold. This time during Diwali we could sell nearly 3 quintals of candles”.

One problem that seems to be bothering the programme is the transfer of skilled teachers from time to time. If this can be systemically stabilised by not disturbing professionally rich and committed teachers for sometime, it may contribute to the strengthening of the resource base in the school. It is heard that when a skilled teacher is transferred in the middle of the year, it turns out to be very challenging to find a replacement for her or him. The system needs to think about this and should strive to strengthen the resource pool through long term planning.

Enlisting the support of the Community

A series of meetings were held with the parents and in the community to inform them about the introduction of the skill based coursed. Parental consent was taken for every child who enrolled for the skill courses. The School reports that, parents who earlier were highly critical of the school are now supportive and keen to send their children to school. Parents now feel that education would enable their children to stand on their legs and they can live happily with dignity in the society. Some of the community members also have come forward to help teachers in their children’s learning in the area of pottery, and hair dressing.

Moreover, skilled trainers from the local Engineering College were brought in to train teachers in the area of book binding, paper bag making, etc. free of cost. One NGO came forward to train teachers and children in soft toy making. This is a continuous process and the school is in the search of such skilled persons and the new skills, which can be nurtured in the school. Every month community members sit with the School HM and other staff to discuss about the problems and possibilities related to skill based education.

Energising the Children

The announcement of the courses was enthusiastically responded to. Once children came to the school the school authorities initiated a series of hands on activities in the school using locally available low cost materials. These new children found these hands on activities interesting and related to them because of their previous experience in the slums and markets. Previously, they had no opportunity to learn the different skills from the professionals as no professional generally is willing to share her/ his professional expertise with others with out any financial gain.

It is also important that their school learning did not end here. After producing good amount of creative materials they went ahead to sell them in the local markets under the guidance of their teachers. This motivated them to maintain quality, find appreciation for their good work and acquire the marketing skills as well. There are ample examples in the school where almost all children found appreciation for their creative skills and this motivated their parents and other community members to value education as a way of dignified living. Children have gained the maximum from this process as they are able to earn through the socially productive activities like hair dressing, flower making, mehendi, book binding, candle making, knitting, etc. One child was able to support the health treatment of his father by using the money he had earned through his


socially productive activities. Some of the amount was also used during the marriage of his sister when the school also helped him in a good way. People were very much impressed by this initiative. Such activities have motivated other children in the school along with their parents and community members.

Along with this the school created opportunities for their education related to basic literacy and numeracy as a part of the general school curriculum. It is good to note that these children who had experienced success through the skill based education developed interest in common reading, writing and numeracy related activities in the school and performed well. This was enabled through the trust and rapport the teachers had built with the children. The children also found these literacy and numeracy skills as additional benefits to their skill development process. They gradually felt that reading and writing contributed to their skill learning and marketing strategies very significantly. They could refer several resource materials related to the different skills and undertake calculations in the school and market sometimes independent of their teachers.

For the children the skill based education has gone beyond gaining an economically useful education, it has added to their own self esteem in their own eyes as well in the eyes of their peers. As one child states, “I study in class VII. In the initial days I came to school only for reading and writing. Those days everybody doubted me and did not like me. My friends used to tease me saying that I was a thief! But it changed dramatically when Vijay Sir started teaching us candle making. I enjoyed the activities in this class. We melted candle, moulded it in number of shapes and prepared candles, which could rally burn like candles available in the market. This fascinated me in a big way. I concentrated on this interesting activity to the best of my ability and Vijay Sir encouraged me regularly by saying that “you are a skilled candle maker”. This encouraged me very much and prepared good quality candles. Yes those days I was stealing. But with candle making I gave it up completely. Everybody including my friends in the school praised my candle making. Even at home my mother and father praised me. The school has given me a big thing. Now I am telling all my friends to learn candle making and enjoy the work, They also can earn money through this activity.”

For another child this was an opportunity to explore his expressive interests. “I was very fond of arts. But I never knew that it could be practiced in school regularly and seriously. I never had the courage to tell it to my teachers. Not even at home. Generally one does not find time in a school for arts. I am very happy since the skill courses started. Now I am able to work with our art teacher to learn and improve my quality in arts. I am able to draw nicely. I have won several prizes for my good work. Like my teacher and other professional artist I have a dream to draw more and more. One day I will start exhibiting my paintings in big halls. More people can see my work and appreciate my creative efforts. In our school we have a specific room for learning arts where 15 students like me work with our teacher and draw many types of pictures. Now our pictures are also sold in the market”.

A budding professional hair stylist says, “I learned hair cutting in this school. In the initial days I practiced in the school by cutting hair of my friends. Then I started applying the skills in my colony and market after the school hours. This has helped me to earn and support my family to an extent. At the same time I am studying sincerely in the school. I have installed a table and chair in the Sector 15 market. After the school hours and in the holidays I am earning well. It goes up to Rs. 120/- per day”.

In just 2 years time a dynamically socially constructive process has started in the slum area school. The rapport between school and society was strengthened in an area where prior to this there was a large gap due to mistrust, wrong attitude and lack of community interest in education.


Financial implications:

For the year 2006-07 the school had received Rs. 69,000/- from the SSA authorities for carrying out the activities. This is for about 20 skill based activities in the school that involves 50 students per group. On the whole, about 800 students benefit from this exercise. In the initial years the money was used for getting the equipment and orienting the teachers for the cause. Over the years their have been changes in the approach. Now the school is not forced to purchase the equipments again. Now the money is used mostly for getting the resources for use in the different activities. Along with this the school is also gaining from the income from the various activities.

The future of this initiative

Discussions with the UT and school authorities have revealed that except the challenges of the initial days there has not been any major problem in the school either in the area of resources, management, or quality of the activities. They say that this has been a very rewarding process where they have been able to win the confidence of the community members in the slums, which at a stage seemed to be very difficult.

Under SSA, education of slum children in the Chandigarh had remained a big challenge from the beginning as they UT authorities were not able to know how many children were there in slums and they did not have any effective strategy to create their interest in education. This was affecting the overall performance of the UT in implementing SSA. This initiative and its success have given them ample systemic confidence to strive for successful universalisation of elementary education. With the programme gaining appreciation and social support now the time has come for the system to think of its sustenance by institutionalising it through proper planning. It should have a long-term vision and implementation strategy to maintain the ethos and quality.

The community support for such creative and socially productive activities is very high as most of the community members are illiterate and poor. The community now feels that their children are learning something that is truly meaningful to their life and future. Hence they are visiting the school regularly other than the times of the monthly meeting with parents to see what their children are learning in the school and how they are applying those skills in their community.

A happy mother reports, “I was very happy when these courses were started in the school. Previously our children were into bad practices. They were not taking any interest in education. They had bad habits like stealing, roaming here and there, playing, etc. None of them were studying at home or school. Now they are very keen to come to school and work with the teachers. They are even working after the school hours. We are very happy with the teachers. They are giving so much time for them”. And another parent shares his views,” My two children were coming to school to study. But they were not taking any interest. When the skill courses started many changes took place in their habit. Now they are learning candle making, flower making, mehendi work. They are also studying at home which had never happened before. This is a big change in them. They are also learning stitching and painting from their friends after the school”

The Government is very clear that they do not want to promote vocational education at a very young age. The emphasis is on ensuring that these children acquire the basic reading, writing skills by the time they complete their elementary schooling at par with other students. Only skill based education can not give them a dignified future. Hence the focus of the schools is on quality elementary education which contains elements of skill courses and not the vice versa.

With the SSA in operation the UT authorities do not face any problem in sustaining this innovative activity in the schools. Along with this marketing of the products is emerging as a source of


financial stability for such activity. The school is able to make substantial profit by selling the products in different areas. Along with this they are thinking of purchasing new resources and equipments for reducing the workload and improve the quality of their school skill based activities. School authorities now feel that such activities can be continued in the school even after SSA like programmes.

One problem that may rise in future is the sustenance of the leadership in such successful schools. Presently the School Heads are playing a crucial role in motivating their staff and students and also in maintaining the quality in the activities and products. The system needs to plan for sustenance of such leadership by building capacity and interest in number of such leaders who can maintain the rhythm and improve the quality further in such activities. Other wise, after a while such activities may face problems when the leadership in the schools is challenged either by retirement of such good HMs or by their transfer. Hence to sustain the quality on a long term basis the system needs to think of advance preparations at different levels.

What the Chandigarh example offers is a possible strategy for reaching out to the hard core of working children especially in urban slums, whereby through a skill up-gradation programme basic education could also be ensured.


Case Study XVI

16. School Complexes of GoaK . M . S H E S H A G I R I

BackgroundThe quantitative expansion and gradual strengthening of the school education system in India has been accompanied by setting up structures to provide grassroots support for better school functioning and teacher performance. DIETs in the eighties and the BRC/CRCs in the nineties were set up with the very objective of providing decentralized academic support to elementary schools.

Started in the late 1970s to end the isolation of teachers, the Goa School Complex program was a unique precursor to these institutions. The scheme provided for communication, resource sharing and joint problem solving among teachers and schools right from the primary to the higher secondary levels. This document presents a brief case study of the program. It discusses the rationale, structure, composition and functioning of the program, presents examples of the experiences gained, and raises questions about its future directions.

Rationale for the School ComplexesThe motivation behind the Goa School Complex program was the Kothari Education Commission Report of the sixties. The panel’s recommendations on the need to establish a common, egalitarian system of schooling cutting across caste, class, religion and gender served as the underpinnings of the initiative: why not share and redistribute human and material resources in our educational system, work collectively, and improve the quality of education for all children, irrespective of caste, religion etc?

The idea of school complexes (SC) is based on the assumption that high and higher secondary schools, often, have better facilities and trained teachers, which can be utilized by the primary and middle schools. Five or six primary and upper primary schools, as per convenience, may form a complex and get their academic and administrative support from the nodal secondary/senior secondary school. The attached schools in the complex may arrange co-curricular activities and give better exposure to their students within the school complex itself rather than taking up the matter at the block or district level. In case of temporary absence of a teacher due to illness, the school complex head can provide a substitute from a neighbouring school. A large number of academic issues and problems can be discussed at the school complex level by arranging a meeting of some or all the teachers. Goa, along with Maharashtra, took this idea forward through its School Complex Scheme in the late seventies.

In other words, the SC program attempts to implement the Common Schooling System envisaged in the Kothari Commission report. All schools39 – those in the government

39 A unique feature of the schooling system in Goa is the participation of the non-government/private sector in school education. The history of this participation is captured in the book School Education in Goa – Status, Issues and Future Perspectives (NCERT 2004). Under the ‘grant-in-aids’ scheme, the Government of Goa supports private schools. In most


schooling system, government-aided schools, and private, unaided schools are envisioned to come together to share their technical and intellectual resources with the other, less privileged, schools in their vicinity. This apart, the SC program is motivated by the need to integrate and synergize the functioning of different levels of schooling – primary, middle, high school and the higher secondary levels, so that the responsibility of the child’s education and development is taken over equally by all the levels. In practice, this happens through a ‘schools adoption’ program, where the teachers of the ‘lead school’ (usually, a high school or higher secondary school) reach out to a selected number of schools in their vicinity. The lead schools are supposed to build a close rapport with the teachers of the adopted school to provide them with guidance and support. The program works completely in a mission mode, and is not driven by any monetary incentives. It depends completely on the teacher’s inner drive/motivation and the leadership of school leaders like headmasters and principals.

Definition, Aims and Objectives of School ComplexThe education department of Goa defines the term ‘School Complex’ as a ‘demarked cluster of primary and middle schools led by a secondary or middle school (called the ‘lead’ school), as decided by the Director of School Education’. Similarly, a ‘Super School Complex’ is a ‘demarked cluster of secondary schools led by a higher secondary school (called the ‘lead’ school), as decided by the Director of Education’. We will examine this structure and its functioning in some detail in subsequent sections.

Box XVI: Aims and objectives of the school complex scheme To break the isolation of schools and establish close linkages, horizontal as well as vertical, within the education system and outside, with other development agencies. To decentralize the process of planning, administration, implementation and monitoring of educational programs. To promote mutual reinforcement of institutions within the school complex by facilitating exchange and sharing of resources, human as well as material. To help schools to function in small, face-to-face cooperative groups. To introduce a closer supervision and guidance system for raising the quality of instruction at all stages. To encourage professionalism and missionary zeal among the teaching fraternity and attempt a collective, concerted effort for raising the standard, quantitative as well as qualitative, of school education, with due freedom for schools and teachers to innovate /experiment, within the broad framework. To identify and utilize to the optimum level and project individuals and institutions with their novel experiments and success stories in the field of education and pull their efforts towards the collective benefit of all.

Source: Government of Goa, Directorate of Education. Guidelines for School Complex and Super School Complex Scheme (2001)

As we have mentioned earlier, the underlying belief that drives the School Complex initiative is that collective efforts and sharing of resources (human and material) will result in overcoming the isolation of schools and teachers. This, in turn, will go a long way in strengthening the school education system and improve its quality.

cases, this support involves teacher salaries, maintenance and rent. This contributes significantly as a reason for the participation of the private schools in government initiatives like the School Complex scheme.


School Complexes: A Timeline Before we study the structure, composition and functions of the school complex scheme, let us locate its chronology. This will help in understanding the evolution of the idea. A broad chronology is presented below:

1978-86: School Complexes launched; selected government schools identified to take part; scheme operates mostly through event-based activities (functions, sports, prize distribution ceremonies, independence/ republic day celebrations…)

1986: SC gained momentum – numbers increased to cover more schools all over the state; state/zone/taluka-level committees formed

1991/92: Super School Complex was launched, bringing the higher secondary school under the purview of the program

1993-98: Lull in the program, loss of momentum; many vacancies in key positions in the education administration of state

1998-2000: Most posts filled, attempts by the directorate of education to revive the school complex scheme

2000-01 onwards: Realization that scheme cannot run effectively unless government officers assume ex-officio roles, and leave day-to-day functioning to selected teachers, headmasters etc (need to decentralize) – this resulted in the teachers assuming important roles in the scheme; 32 teacher fairs were held to orient teachers to this scheme; for the first time, teachers at all levels came together in these fairs (some boundaries were broken…); state-level guidelines were formulated in a comprehensive, clear manner; ‘Eleven Point’ agenda came into existence; ‘Seven Cells’ (state-level think tanks) were created in 2003. The program gained momentum due to these efforts.

2005-2006: (Present) Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan enters the state; BRCs and CRCs being recruited; implications for school complex scheme…

Structure of the School Complex Program: OverviewThe SC program has been designed in such a manner as to ensure a decentralized mode of functioning with broad participation and contribution of teachers at all levels within the educational system, starting from the school, right up to the state level. The structure of this program consists of various committees, each of which has distinct functions even as it is linked to other committees horizontally and vertically. The SC structure and functioning will be better understood if we locate it in relation to the structure of the educational administration in the state as it operates in this context. Each level is connected or linked closely to a corresponding body above or below it. The organizational structure is designed in such a way as to facilitate convergence of resources for greater impact at the school level.

The school education administration of Goa comprises the Directorate of Education (DoE) at the state level. The DoE is assisted by Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors. At the next level, the state is divided into three education zones (North, Central and South) that are administered by the Deputy Education Officer (DEO). Further, each zone is divided into talukas (blocks). Goa has 11 blocks in all; each zone has three-four talukas in its jurisdiction. The person in charge at the taluka level is the


Assistant District Educational Inspector (ADEI). All the schools in the taluka come under his/her purview.

In relation to this structure, the SC program consists of interlinked committees, from the state to the school complex level. These committees include the State-level School Complex Committee (SLSCC), Zonal-level School Complex Committee (ZLSCC), and Taluka-level School Complex Committee (TLSCC). For the purposes of operationalisation at the ground level, each taluka is demarcated into Super School Complexes (SSC), which function as ‘lead schools’ to support School Complexes (SC). The School Complexes, in turn, become the lead schools to support a group of primary schools.

As we shall see later, at the heart of quality improvement efforts as enshrined in the School Complex initiative is the ‘11-Point Program’ (sometimes known as the Minimum Common Program). The program committees (or functional units) at the SSC and SC levels are directly responsible for this program. The 11-point program is seen as meeting the most basic, most fundamental needs of each school. It is the reference point or framework for quality for all the schools which are part of the School complex initiative.

Lastly, as part of this brief description of the overall structure of the SC initiative, we must mention the ‘Seven Cells’ that were constituted at the state level in 2003. These cells, responsible for quality improvement, resource development, career guidance etc, are seen as ‘think tanks’ whose function it is to develop perspectives and strengthen the functioning of the school education system through innovations, experimentation, research etc. The seven cells act as a ‘State Resource Group’ represented by teachers, headmasters etc from different institutions all over the state. We will describe the 11- point program and the functioning of the seven cells in some detail in a later section. The SC structure is the vehicle for the 11-point program as well as the initiatives of the seven cells.

School Complex Structure: Composition and Functions On the whole, the School Complex Scheme is envisaged to implement the Minimum Common Program devised by the SLSCC (this includes the minimum levels of learning -- MLLs). The school complex structure is expected to undertake educational mapping on the basis of which the different elements of the 11-point agenda can be implemented. However, not all schools have the same capacities, or function in the same manner. Hence, as part of the scheme, it is envisaged that each school will be graded to ascertain its interests, strengths and limitations – this will be used to strengthen its management. Academic planning and supervision will be undertaken regularly as part of this process.

The initiative is also expected to establish and promote linkages between schools to share facilities like libraries, laboratories, teacher expertise/resources etc. and organize for frequent interactions between schools for sharing of experiences and learning. Such an approach, it is hoped, will motivate teachers to adapt innovative methods to enhance teaching-learning. It will also create space for educational leadership to develop in the system. The school complex structure is also expected to work closely with the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) and the State Institute of Education (SIE) to organize seminars, workshops and meetings of interest and relevance for the teaching community.


Another important function of the school complex initiative is to reach out to parents and the local community to enable the development of a healthy relationship between the school, teachers and community and local government departments. This interface is necessary to ensure that all children come into the fold of school education.

In the coming sections, we describe the composition and function of different elements in the school complex structure, beginning with the ground level, where the school complex is located.

School Complex Level As already mentioned, the ‘School Complex’ is defined as a ‘demarked cluster of primary and middle schools led by a secondary or middle school (called the ‘lead’ school), as decided by the Director of School Education’. The School Complex generally consists of 2-10 primary schools in the vicinity of the lead school. Physical proximity is considered an important criterion for inclusion of a primary or middle school in the school complex. Normally, each School Complex is headed by the Headmaster of the secondary (or lead) school.

Box XVII: Functions of the school complex: One To help teachers in proper planning and preparing for annual subject portions and daily teaching/other school work To formulate the institutional plan of development and improvement for each school within the school complex, and for the school complex as a whole in the first meeting To facilitate self assessment and plan for self development of each teacher To support the development of teaching-learning aids/materials To arrange for demonstration lessons by experienced teachers, minimum two, per year To arrange for and conduct activities for children and their teachers at the elementary level, in the school complex premises To help develop healthy habits among children To ensure implementation of the minimum (11-point) program at the school level, with support from the concerned ADEI at the taluka level To extend cooperation to neighbouring school complexes and school complex committees

The School Complex is mandated to further organize itself into four broad, interrelated functional units in order to perform the above functions. These are the Central Committee, Program Committee, Associate team or Link Teachers and Minimum Program In-charge Teachers.

Super School Complex LevelLike the School Complex, the Super School Complex (SSC) forms the next level in the structure and is defined as a ‘demarked cluster of secondary schools led by a higher secondary school (which is the ‘lead’ school in this case), as decided by the Director of Education’. It consists of 2-10 high schools in the vicinity. The Principal of the higher secondary school heads the SSC.


Box XVIII: Functions of the school complex - Two To organize need-based programs to perform given functions for the students and teachers at secondary and higher secondary level for qualitative improvement with the program committee and academic subject committees constituted for this purpose. To provide guidance to school complexes within the locality To participate in the activities, meetings and workshops organized at the taluka, zonal and state levels as and when necessary To extend cooperation to neighbouring schools, super school complexes and committees at state, zonal and taluka levels Head of SSC is responsible for monitoring and follow up of all activities

Similar to the School Complex, the SSC has a well-defined structure of interlinked committees (Central Committee, Program Committee, Link Teachers, Resource Development Cell and Subject Panels) to carry out the above functions. The additional function in the case of the SSC is the need to interface with the structures and activities at the block, zone and state levels. These could be related to training, material development, documentation, surveys and data collection, etc.

Taluka Level School Complex Committee (TLSCC) Each of the 11 talukas has a TLSCC whose responsibility it is to ensure that a common program/agenda is followed by all the SSCs, SCs and primary/middle schools in the taluka. Monitoring of expenses made by the SSCs and SCs is also part of its mandate. The TLSCC also has the responsibility to bring, from time to time, all educational institutions on a common platform for sharing of ideas, experiences and promoting innovations. This apart, the committee plays a critical role in creating an effective interface between the state administration and school complex structures on the one hand, with the schools, on the other. The ADEI and DEO assist/support the TLSCC in performing this function.

Zone Level School Complex Committee (ZLSCC)Each of the three zones (north, central and south) has a ZLSCC. Like the TLSCC, the zonal committee must ensure a commonality of approach among TLSCCs, SSCs, SCs etc, and agreement on priorities to undertake the same. Monitoring/supervision of activities and expenses, thus, form the important responsibilities of the ZLSCC. The committee is also responsible for bringing, from time to time, all educational institutions in the zone on a common platform for sharing of ideas, experiences and promoting innovations. This apart, the committee creates an effective interface between the state administrative and school complex structures on the one hand, with the taluka committees and schools, on the other. The ADEIs and DEOs assist/support the ZLSCC in carrying out this function.

State Level School Complex Committee (SLSCC)The state-level committee has the overall control over the SC program in Goa. It frames policies, guidelines, and criteria for functioning, strengthening and up gradation of the various structures in the SC system. Apart from creating platforms for projection and sharing of innovative approaches in education through seminars and workshops etc, the SLSCC is expected to link up with institutions like DIET (there is one in Goa),


the SIE, and other external resource persons and agencies for design, development and provision of technical and managerial inputs. The SLSCC also has to ensure timely disbursement of funds to SSCs, SCs and the Taluka and zonal committees in time.

We have mentioned earlier about the seven cells that exist at the state level. This unit with its interlinked cells is a sub-set of the SLSCC, and is expected to be the think tank of this committee. Its academic mandate extends to the entire school education system in Goa. This unit was formed in 2002-03. It has, at least, three-four representatives at the zone and taluka levels. There is a convener at the state level. Conveners are usually headmasters or principals of educational institutions, either government or private.

Box XIX: Functions of the seven cellsMinimum Program Cell – The main purpose of this cell is to promote/support effective implementation of the entire package of the 11-point program in every school, right from the primary to the higher secondary level.Career Guidance and Counselling Cell – This cell trains teachers on emotional counselling besides conducting aptitude tests for children to provide career guidance.Resource Development Cell – This cells attempts to undertake activities to raise the quality of instruction, at all stages. Teachers are encouraged to try innovations and experiment with methods that would interest children. In other words, the goal is to make teaching-learning child centred.Quality Monitoring Cell – This cell is expected to perform an integrative role between all the other cells and evolve a method of defining quality, measuring it and monitoring the same in all the educational institutions.Institutional Development Cell – This cell is expected to look at the academic, administrative and infrastructure requirements of educational institutions at all levels. It mainly engages in surveys and data gathering to make plans to meet the above requirements.Databank and Bulletin Cell – Over a period of time, this cell envisages the development of a sound databank on various aspects like infrastructure, enrolment, retention and dropout rates, teacher appointments and transfers, databank of human resources available in the state as well as external agencies, etc. Each SSC will be the centre for this information collection. This apart, the cell has started publishing an annual bulletin called ‘Parivar’ (family)Parental Awareness Cell – This cell is meant to strengthen the interface between the parents and the school through a number of activities at different levels.

Apart from the state convener, each cell has three representatives from the zone, and up to 11 representatives from the taluka. In all, there are 105 persons who belong to the seven cells. These cells function as the state-level resource group for education. All the representatives are selected teachers who are interested in and committed to educational change. They work on a voluntary basis, with the state taking care of their transport, board and lodging needs.

The 11-Point ProgramThe 11-point program is the very core of the School Complex initiative which aims to essentially build and improve quality in teaching-learning. The program committees at the SSC and SC levels are directly responsible for executing this program. This program is seen as meeting the most basic, most fundamental needs of each school. It is considered to be the ‘non-negotiable element’ for any educational institution in the government or non-government system.


Through this program, each school is expected to aim for the ‘all round and integrated development of each child’. The components are designed to meet these goals. Briefly40, they are:

Subject Activities – These are meant to make subject transactions interesting. The effort is to move beyond textbook-based instruction and promote ‘experiential learning’.

Minimum Level Attainment Test – This aims to put in place a flexible testing system that enables the teacher to understand the learning achievement of each child. Testing through routine conduct of exams is not enough.

Exposure of School Equipment – This aims at providing access to learning materials (books, teaching aids supplied etc) already available in school. With the accent mostly on and talk methods, these supplementary materials are not really used. This component makes it mandatory for all schools to regularly create access to, and use, these materials.

Vachan Sadhna – This aims to strengthen the school library and make it the centre of reading activity in all schools. There is a realization that reading is crucial for sustaining early learning. Hence, the focus.

Health Education – This is to promote healthy habits in children, and also create awareness on basic health issues during the process of growing up.

Environmental Education – Rather than giving theoretical knowledge, this component aims to foster sensitivity in children regarding their natural and physical environment through experiential activities.

Student Orientation – This goes beyond subject instruction, and attempts to help children develop leadership skills, self confidence and democratic values etc leading to enhanced development of personality.

Innovative Novelty Function – The idea here is to turn boring and conventional school functions and socializing into interesting events for children, with their involvement. Each school must be able to organize at least one function that is ‘innovative’ or ‘novel’.

Talent Search Campaign – Mere subject instruction gives the teacher very little scope to understand his/her children better. A sensitive teacher needs to understand children and their abilities/talents, in many different ways. This component, therefore, promotes a ‘mapping’ of the same in every school.

Effective Parent-Teacher Association – This is to strengthen the parent-school interface and also sensitize parents to the need for scientific childcare covering aspects like nutrition etc.

Interaction with the Community – This component aims at promoting a seamless interaction between the children and their local community. The idea is that school should not become isolated from the community.

40 A detailed explanation is to be found in the document State Level School Complex Scheme, Goa – Eleven Point Program (not dated)


School Complexes – Triumphs…1. Uniqueness of the Idea – Given that a serious discussion on decentralized onsite support to teachers to help overcome their isolation came only with the advent of the DPEP, the School Complex initiative has been far ahead of its time. It is a serious effort to create an equitable system of education for children all over the state, across caste, class, religion and gender barriers by sharing the available human and material resources – an egalitarian approach that aims to solve collective problems. Followed in letter and spirit, it could be a potential tool for meeting the goal of the ‘Common Schooling System’.

2. Elaborate Articulation – The program guidelines are well thought out. This has resulted in a compact and integrated structure all over the state, encompassing all schools, government or private, across all levels of the educational spectrum up to the higher secondary level.

3. Creation of Platforms and Mapping of Resources – Given the nearly 30-year-old history of this program, there has been periods of both activity and inactivity. On the whole, however, the initiative has resulted in the continuous projection and promotion of the serious, committed and talented teacher – through various forums and activities such as theatre, sports, career counselling etc. This needs to be strengthened. However, the limitations of DIET and the SIE seem to be hampering efforts.

Teachers who have been involved in their capacity as resource persons and those who have attempted to reach out to other schools, report important gains as regards their capacities and confidence levels are concerned. They are unanimous in observing that the scheme has great potential for transforming schools. The constant refrain, however, is that the pace of change is slow.

…and Tribulations1. Have We Achieved Critical Mass?

There appears to be only a small number of teachers who have the inclination to make a difference. This group would like to see a frequent intermingling of functionaries, teachers and others at different levels. The challenge for the program is to bring in more and more people in its fold.

“How can critical mass be achieved if there are questionable decisions? This year, the state decided not to continue its financial support to the functioning of the seven cells. How can we move forward? The seven cells have, in the past few years, undertaken many activities that have resulted in the churning of the school education system. This should continue.” – A senior official of the state government

2. Resistance and ‘Class’ Perceptions

There is a certain ‘class’ perception in the minds of the teachers and headmasters of the primary, high and higher secondary schools. They are not ready to work together on a common platform, and resist learning from one another. For instance, high school teachers and headmasters are quite uncomfortable learning from their higher secondary counterparts, who, they feel, does not have adequate understanding of their (high school teachers) issues. Primary school teachers also feel that the high school teacher is often ill equipped to provide support. Willing and consistent engagement by teachers at all levels is an issue.


3. Another Government Scheme?

Institution-based assessment shows that non-government institutions have shown more interest; most government schools see it as ‘another government scheme’. There is no mechanism for enforcing accountability, with the result that the really needy children are left out all the time. This apart, irregularity in attendance in workshops and meetings, sporadic and limited reporting lack of action on non-compliance reports etc, has hampered the program.

4. Are Teachers Prepared Adequately?

Often, teachers at different levels tend to interpret the scheme as one that has brought in more rigid school inspection instead of support. Their constant refrain is: why should we be ‘cross checked’ by teachers and others who are working in different institutions? This observation perhaps stems from the nature of interaction between different levels. On the whole, it points at the inadequate mental, intellectual and emotional preparation that is needed for collective work, leading to increased accountability. This is very critical for horizontal and vertical expansion and integration in the SC approach. In this connection, it may be worthwhile to note that the SC guidelines by themselves do not mean much – one has to take forward the initiatives to realize them on the ground to make a difference in every school. The perception that it is all extra work does not help.

5. Where is the Time?

Most schools, particularly in urban Goa, operate in two (morning and afternoon) shifts. Teachers are often not willing to extend their working hours beyond their shifts. This prevents dialogue from taking root, particularly because there are more children per class in both government and other schools and also because of space constraints in the school. Often, teachers at the SSC and SC levels do not have find the time required for a continuous engagement with their adopted schools. Monthly visits are often replaced by quarterly visits, some times, just one in four months!

6. Role of the Education Official

The role of the Assistant District Education Officer (ADEI) is critical to the effective functioning of the School Complex idea. There has been no training or orientation for these functionaries regarding their roles and responsibilities vis-à-vis the program. Very often, their lack of understanding of the actual needs of teachers and children comes in the way of their support to, for instance, pedagogical initiatives that are required to make a qualitative change in the way schools function, and in the way children learn. They are often sceptical about trying different ideas, and use their administrative clout/power to frustrate the attempts of interested teachers/headmasters.

7. Are Children’s Learning Levels Really Improving?

Despite elaborate guidelines, including the articulation of the 11-point program, a major effort over the years seems to have been on conducting school functions, training and co-curricular activities etc. This limits the setting up of mechanisms for sustained engagement with teachers and children as regards the pedagogical issues. Through informal interactions, one gathers the worry in certain quarters about the extremely low schooling attainments among children. The program needs rethinking in this regard, especially with respect to the time actually spent on school/classroom-based interactions for problem solving by teachers from different institutions.


There are, of course, some loopholes in the program and it is difficult to assess its impact on school quality and children’s learning. But as an initiative, it holds promise – something that is validated by the changes that have occurred over a period of time. The other major challenge facing the programme is its location within the SSA framework and relation with other decentralized support structures such as the BRCs and CRCs being considered under SSA.


Case Study XVII

17. Upscaling an Innovation: the Rishi Valley experienceP . P R A S A N T H I a n d P A D M A

‘Don’t ask me how you can change the world. Do it!’

– J. Krishnamurthi

The Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RIVER), a part of the Rishi Valley Education Centre, is located in the rural interior of Andhra Pradesh, India, a severely drought-prone area. The local population is engaged, largely, in marginal farming, sheep rearing, seasonal labor and stone cutting. The region suffered the same ills which mark the state of primary education in most of the developing world – high drop-out rates, low levels of learning, teacher absenteeism, dreary and joyless schools; and the larger social context of growing child labour, subsistence farming and increasing level of destitution. RIVER approach has been designed with this as the backdrop and the rich educational experience that flows from J Krishnamurthi’s philosophy.

The BeginningThe RIVER program was initiated in 1986 to cater to the educational needs of the children from the surrounding villages. The realization that the rich oral traditions were endangered and centralized educational systems cut off the underprivileged from their own culture as well as meaningful education resulted in a critical survey of the mono-grade classroom in existing schools. This study-cum-evaluation program revealed some crucial concerns:

Needs of the children were multi-grade and multi-level whereas the textbooks were prepared to cater only to a mono-grade system

Learning was entirely teacher directed with little scope for cooperative or peer learning

Focus was on “teaching” students rather than them learning

Content had little relevance to the local needs and contexts

A school was opened on the campus of the Rishi Valley to address these issues and experiment with a new model that would create an environment where ‘learning’ took place. After a while, the first satellite school was established in Eguvaboyapalli village of the predominantly Boya tribal community, who trace their descent to the epic poet, Valmiki. It was aptly called Valmikivan. The experiment soon expanded - creating a unique network of schools in 17 neighbourhood villages most of which did not have a government school. The communities in these villages were involved - right from identifying the location for the school to actively participate in running it. These


schools were specifically designed to locally orient first-generation learners and enable them to work at their own pace in mixed age groups.

Philosopher and founder of the Rishi Valley School J. Krishnamurthi sowed the seed for RIVER. His inspiring conversations with students in 1984 about changing the world, and the enormous needs of poor children in the countryside were effected by a young couple, Y.A. Padmanabha Rao and Rama Rao. The initial intent behind starting the Rural Education Centre (REC) was to provide a school for the children of Rishi Valley workers from nearby villages. The subsequent efforts and experiments by adopting oral traditions and focusing less on idealistic models resulted in ‘School in a Box’ – a multi-grade, multi-level learning kit.

The First School – Problems and SolutionsInvolving the community at Eguvaboyapalli in establishing the school was challenging to begin with. Socio-economic and cultural factors stood in the way of education. Children were engaged in wage-earning activities rather than attending school. Addiction to liquor was another impediment. But continued interaction with the community, intensive discussions with mothers, children and the youth led to some answers. And sure enough, the community donated land for starting a one-room school and even volunteered construction. Thus, Valmikivanam was launched with 30 students. The once-barren land soon turned into a literal vanam, a garden full of fruit trees and flowering plants.

The school structure provided an encouraging learning environment with perfect ventilation. A large hall lit up by lots of natural light, charming art pieces from local artisans, joint efforts of the people, teachers and students and lots more contributed to making this an attractive place to serve and stimulate the educational needs of the community. Taking a cue from here, the RIVER team initiated an adult education program. Soon, the school premises began to double up as an adult education centre in the evening, equipped with a small library!

The village, that was virtually illiterate a few years ago, now has 75% literacy rate and cent per cent enrolment.

Evolution of CurriculumDriven by the need for a learner-appropriate curriculum, the RIVER team created a pool of primary-level teaching learning materials. It adopted the best practices used across the country and abroad for preparing adaptable materials and methods relevant for multi-grade and multi-level environments. It was a challenging task to not lose sight of the National Curriculum Framework, ensure Minimum Learning Levels (MLL) of every child as prescribed by the NCERT and also develop locally-appropriate teaching-learning strategies. Learner participation, and not competition and comparison, was the focus of the curriculum, and the relationship between the teacher, students and the community its driving force.

The teacher – who would be more of a facilitator – was to take charge of building quality and learning infrastructure - while the child would have more freedom to reflect on her learning. The teacher was an adult from the same locality and required a minimum qualification of being a matriculate or intermediate. There were, and are, no


other pre-designated qualifications. The teacher has to undergo a simple training to deal with multi-grade and multi-level children.

The next challenge was to develop material complimenting this curriculum and enable effective transaction. At the same time the material had to be cost effective and learner friendly. This was done by employing locally available low-cost, and many a time, no cost, material. Short stories and rhymes were developed using themes from the textbooks and given an indigenous flavour. Logos of local animals and birds and, later, colours were used to code learning cards for different grades. These codified cards formed the famous ‘school in a box’ kit. In the process of evolution and usage of the kit, a ladder was developed to identify the pace of learning and for self-reflection.

Material preparation was and is still on as a continuous process - of developing, transacting, practicing and reflecting - enriching the teacher as well as the student. This churning has always resulted in new and creative learning materials and methodology.

The Community… and the School…Each community has a sense of ownership in its (satellite) school as they have actively participated at every stage of building it - right from donating land to contributing material and labour for constructing the school. They are proud of their school. It was necessary to translate this pride in to action, so that the community could eventually take on the responsibility of running its school. This led to the formation of mothers’ committees in each of the villages where satellite schools have been initiated.

Metric Mela: A Math FairArimedhavanam, the satellite school in Thummachetlapalle village bore a festive atmosphere with decorative flags and children brightly dressed up for Metric Mela. They had put up stalls for measuring height, weight, length, foot size, quantity and counting, apart from some food stalls.

Preparations for the mela began a week earlier in the village. Teachers, students, mothers and old students met and discussed the plan and logistics. The school and the community shared the responsibilities of organizing the events.

There were about 70 children from the surrounding four satellite schools and about 250 visitors, including school teachers from Nizamabad district and members of the community.

Enthusiasm in the children was evident as they engaged their visitors for about two and a half hours, with checking weight, height, length of the nose or encouraging them to test their ability to count money in a minute and noting the results in their sheets as well as on the cards given to every participant.

Mothers, fathers and grannies were equally enthused in assisting their children in the food stalls. Some cultural performances had also been organized. The whole event marked the involvement of the community, students and the teachers and fulfilled joint learning as the most important objectives of the mela.

Aims and objectives:

Involve the community in school activities

Help members to recognize the value of school and education

Organize such an attractive, educational fair to reduce dropout rate


Relate mathematical concepts learnt in the classroom with real life

Build awareness among members of the community regarding health and hygiene

Make the children aware of the importance of the main aspects of communication: speaking, understanding what is explained, reading without mistakes etc

Make them aware of mathematical concepts such as: addition, subtraction, place value, fractions and measurements that are useful in our day-to-day life

Recognize and demonstrate the hidden talents of children

Bring about an awareness of cultural programs and folk art

Encourage scientific and logical thinking in children

The ChildComing to school is a joyful daily activity for the children. They begin their learning activities as soon as they are in the classroom. They know where and how they have to sit - in a pentagon, convenient for the teacher to circulate freely in the class.

The small and wide wooden tables allow the children to sit down around the table and work with a set of cards. Each table represents a group of children at a particular level. As they finish one set, they ask the teacher to give the evaluation card to test their learning. Children know easily where they are on the learning ladder that is displayed in the classroom for ready reference. They also use the blackboard for practicing what they have learnt.

Students who complete one set and move on to the next solve the puzzles and are given a ‘crown’ for a day. That is a great day for the child. He/she can lead the class, guide the younger ones or the peers and move around every table in the classroom. This serves as inspiration for others, thus initiating quick learning. Children are curious, enthusiastic and work at their own pace, even in mixed groups. There are also whole class and small group interactions for several of the activities connected different subjects and especially with language expression through oral and written exercises. Regularly they get together for collective infotainment activities like singing, dancing playing and gardening. These are supplemented by community festivals. This kind of learning induces independent and objective thinking in the children. They learn to respect their culture, environment and understand the need for their conservation. This is a major point of emphasis in the RIVER model.

Textbooks are introduced only when the child comes to class 5 so that she can begin to get familiar with the regular mode of learning in schools. Once they have cleared class 5, most REC children write their entrance exam for admission to schools run by the government. Interestingly, many of the successful students who opt for higher education return to work in their own communities and these satellite schools.

Learning LevelsThe process of learning is graded in the RIVER model. Each child has to go through five levels in order to pass from one milestone to the other or from one lesson to the next. They are:

introduction


practice

evaluation

remedial

enrichment

Each of these stages is denoted by a set of colour codes and symbols. For example, rabbit cards are introductory cards whereas elephant cards are for practice. The seating arrangement and grouping of children in the classroom emphasizes peer learning and self motivation. The children are grouped according to their learning levels into:

teacher supported

partially teacher supported

peer supported

partially peer supported

self /individual learning

The pentagon style of seating children allows a lot of flexibility and mobility both to the child and the teacher. It enables optimizing teacher-directed time for a needy/deserving child in a multi-level and multi-graded environment.

RIVER spreads out: New areas new challengesThe unique experiences at the RIVER enthused and inspired the team to experiment further and come out with more innovative methods. The classroom became a social laboratory for educational research. Outcomes and challenges were shared at the monthly review meetings with the other members (teachers and resource group members) who could strengthen the ideas with their inputs.

The RIVER experience attracted many organizations, both inter and intra state, working on education, towards Rishi Valley to learn from it.

The first step of taking this approach outside the Rishi Valley domain took place in 1993. A network of different NGOs, in Andhra Pradesh was keen to adopt the model in Mahabubnagar district. VIP, YFA, DIET, government school teachers partnered the project, along with UNICEF (which also funded it), and the first experiment outside the RIVER began in 1993 across 11 mandals of the district. It started out as an intensive summer camp in government primary schools, with focus on girl child dropouts. The success rate was an amazing 98.6%, both in terms of MLLs as well as retention rate of girls.

The experiment proved that the model was replicable. But there was also the challenge that such models work only in non-formal educational interventions.

Two years later, in 1995, the UNICEF-supported Nali Kali program that was started in 36 government primary schools with a clutch of enthusiastic teachers of H. D. Kote district, Karnataka, proved that this model was adoptable even in the formal school system. The whole process has had many twists and turns. Initially an enthusiastic group of fifteen teachers visited Rishi Valley satellite schools as part of searching ways to revitalize primary schools. Realizing the strengths of the joyful and participatory teaching learning methods followed in these schools they came forward to try in their schools in Karnataka. Lot of processes had gone in to making the kit suitable to the local context. During this phase the practical involvement of the teachers and the


continuous interactions between the teachers and the RIVER resource team helped in developing relevant material for effective transaction. These processes of capacity building and regular follow-ups brought in the expected outcomes. But when it came to applying at a larger scale, there was resistance from many teachers. At this stage, RIVER intervened by presenting flexibility of the model and suggesting incorporation of local culture in to the content of the kit. This cleared the apprehensions amongst them. The teachers could then felt comfortable to take it forward, thereby making the strategy successful. It clearly proved that accepting a model designed by others is difficult, but taking the framework and revitalizing it with localness gives ownership both to the teachers and the learners. Seeing the effectiveness of this approach in HD Kote, the Karnataka government scaled up the program in other selected districts of the state.

Witnessing the results, the need for expansion of RIVER philosophy of education was felt by many across the country and outside. This demand created the need for incorporating core group training as a component. As the number of non-Telugu speaking states approached RIVER for adoption of its methodology, the process of trans-creation of the learning material was adopted to keep the warmth and vibrancy of the methodology. This has been the strength and uniqueness of the RIVER project allowing the original framework to retain and develop TLM incorporating the local traditions and culture. This rule bound flexibility is the core element of the programme which enabled its wider reach.

Taking the learning’s from diverse experiences and interactions with the Partners RIVER was also continuously experimenting for more and more vibrant methods to retain the vigour in child centred joyful learning. In many a case the teachers are more conditioned towards teaching rather than learning where there is no scope for exploring innovative methods. This is another area where RIVER made its impact by bringing in the self-reflection processes. RIVER method always stressed on the facilitative role of the teacher in brining joyful learning in to reality.

The novel approach of Rishi Valley tries to bridge gaps between the theory and research findings. Researches to improve the methods and methodologies in education are an ongoing process across the world. Many-a-times there is an artificial pressure to adopt the so called best methods everywhere not taking into consideration the crucial element of relevance to the local context there by the expectations remain idealistic. This is where RIVER strongly brings in its concept of valuing the rich regional oral traditions and knowledge synergizing with the theory. This enables the replicability of the model anywhere in any context.

Paderu region, though located in Andhra Pradesh state, where Rishi Valley is also located, has tribal population who speak a very different dialect of Telugu. When ITDA, Paderu and RIVER came together for collaborative efforts the ‘school in a box’ kit was trans-created and developed as Aanandalahari kit.

In Andhra Pradesh, the districts of Krishna, Guntur, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Chittoor districts initially adapted the RIVER model in identified mandals. The school teachers from these districts have undergone training in trans-creation of the kit bringing localness. Each of the districts gave different local famous names to their kits. Presently the teachers from Chittoor district are going ahead with production of worksheets and graded early readers for class I and II.


Similarly DPEP, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh states developed the kit in Malayalam and Hindi languages respectively. RIVER resource group helped them in adding the dimensions of socio, cultural and linguistic milieu. May it be corporation schools in Chennai, Nonformal schools in U.P, formal schools in M.P. and Karnataka or the tribal schools in Kerala, the experiences become fresh every time and leading to production of new materials and methodology with a new name.

The whole process is leading to cross-fertilization of the ideas with enriched experiences. Working in different states with different cultures and languages widened the knowledge base of the RIVER team which in turn makes its way into the future partnerships.

The successes of RIVER project not limited just to the country but reached the international arena. It is evident by the Ethiopian primary school teachers approaching RIVER team for support in strengthening their rural education programmes. Support was sought for building capacities of educators in designing self learning materials for grade 1 & 2. It is a package of three major components, viz., building schools in remote areas, convergence of women and youth programmes and integrating issues of Ecology and HIV&AIDS into education.

Later, teams from Metz University, France and Regensburge University, Germany approached for collaboration in teacher education and post graduate programmes. The six months practical learning at satellite schools forms part of their course validated for certification. Some such students are working on developing an interactive computer course by digitalizing the school in a box kit. The RIVER and the Regensburge University, Germany entered into a long term collaborative action. It is now taking a shape of teacher student exchange programme.

The efforts of the RIVER resource team were recognized by many State Governments in India. The state SSA projects in collaboration with UNICEF entered into a joint action with RIVER for adapting the MGML methodology in the formal schools. The state teams visited Rishi Valley project area to study the processes of MGML methodology. They have undergone ten days intensive training at Rishi Valley on the development and transaction of the TLM, with local context. Subsequently, the collaborative action has been taken up by 12 states - Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkand, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Andaman Nicobar, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa.

The Strategy for Replication

The strategy of RIVER programme is to help the partners at class 1 and 2 for a period of two years in four focal areas:

community participation,

designing curriculum,

class room processes,

monitoring and evaluation.

Another strategy followed is to work with a core group from a cross section of people from different fields (local artists in puppet making, story telling, stage artists, artisans, teachers, DIET team, etc.) which gets continuous inputs from RIVER. Their role is to take the organic process forward. The RIVER initiative would be started in a


maximum of 50 schools continued for two years and gradually phase-out by identifying a model school. This model school serves as a nodal school for reflection, experimentation and interaction to help in further up-scaling of the process.

Organizing annual national workshops with all the partner organizations and academicians for cross-fertilization and enriching the learning experiences forms another strategy.

According to Mr. Padmanabha Rao, the Director of RIVER project, the training on MGML methodology to small bunches of teachers and adapting it across the state would dilute the spirit of transaction and is a big challenge. A solution to this, according to him, is synergizing the methodology with the content of regular teacher training course. SSA also responded positively and efforts or on in this direction.

How it happened…?Partnership Strategies

1. One of the strategies of the RIVER program is to help the partners for two years (classes 1 and 2) in four focal areas:

Community participation

Designing curriculum

Classroom processes

Monitoring and evaluation

2. RIVER also provides inputs to a core group comprising people from different fields (local artists in puppet making, story telling, stage artists, artisans, teachers, DIET teams etc.) Their role is to take the organic processes forward. The RIVER initiative is started in a maximum of 50 schools and continues for two years before it is gradually phased out by identifying a model school. This model school serves as a nodal school for reflection, experimentation and interaction to help in further up-scaling of the process.

3. The centre also organizes annual national workshops with all the partner organizations and academicians to discuss new ideas and enhance learning.

4. During this phase, the practical involvement of the teachers and their continuous interactions with the RIVER team helped develop relevant material for effective transaction. These processes of capacity building and regular follow-ups brought in expected outcomes. But many teachers resisted the idea of applying the model on a larger scale.

5. The RIVER, then, suggested that the local culture be incorporated in the content of the kit. So, while the framework and principles would remain constant, the model would be designed to suit local contexts. This cleared the air and teachers took the program forward. What started as a quiet revolution in 36 schools of Karnataka had transformed into a regular part of the curriculum in 600 schools.

6. The magic of the RIVER philosophy touched many across the country and outside. The Ethiopian educationists, for example, have approached the centre for support in strengthening their rural education programs. Following similar demands, the model incorporated core group training as a program component.


7. A number of non-Telugu speaking states sought the adoption of RIVER methodology. Learning material was trans-created to keep the warmth and vibrancy of the methodology.

8. The model stressed the facilitative role of the teacher in translating joyful learning into reality. It demonstrated how teachers could move away from teaching and focus on learning, innovating methods and self-reflection.

9. The USP of the model lies in its adaptability of new methods and models and its firm belief in the strength of local traditions and knowledge which it incorporates in a given scenario. This enables the model to be replicated anywhere, any time, and in any context.

The Flow of RIVER – A TimelineLate 1970s – Setting up of the Rural Education Centre for the children of school employees

1986 – One small single-teacher school called Valmikivanam was started at Eguvaboyapalli, a hamlet 4 km away from Rishi Valley.

1987-88 – Grant by the Department of Education, Ministry of HRD, GoI, for evolving an alternative model of education that could address the formal primary school problems.

1988-92 – RIVER Satellite schools in and around Rishi Valley to study local needs and address local problems

Close study and analysis of elementary schools and the text books to understand the limitations of the formal schooling system and its teacher-centred teaching. Analysis of the curriculum and assess the minimum learning levels.

Developed a framework for redesigning the whole outlook towards curriculum of the village schools. Preparation of the initial package for MGML situations without textbooks. 1993 – Published School in a Box, first edition, in Telugu. A Language package for Class I to V, and a Math Kit for Class I to III, with teaching aids and a Ladder of Learning. Designed and developed by the RIVER team. Field-tested for five years in the Rishi Valley Satellite schools – First successful experiment - Reduced dropout rate, progressive learning, increased interest in academics and increased enrolment in class 6. The results were further substantiated when children passed the class 6 examination in the regular school method with high percentages.

Expansion to 17 single-teacher Satellite schools within a radius of 15 km from the RIVER. The centre established a network with these schools and served as the resource base for them. The satellite schools further grouped into a cluster for hands-on capacity building, easy planning and organizing community festivals.

1993 – First outreach through Bhagavatula Charitable Trust, Vishakapatnam – ILO-supported child labour education project.

Replicability successfully tested and established through adoption in an intensive 75-day summer school program in 200 centres across 10 mandals supported by UNICEF in Mahabubnagar and AP State Education Department


1994 – Adoption of the RIVER model in HD Kote district of Karnataka and, later, in different blocks of the state – core group formed for trans-creation of the material and the training methodology keeping intact the linguistic and cultural ethos. 1994 – Developed North Arcot Tamil Education Kit for Classes I to III. Adapted from School in a Box, and jointly designed by the Arivoli Ayakkam resource group and the RIVER team for use in the North Arcot District, Tamil Nadu.

1995 – ITDA, Paderu and Rampachodavaram –capacity building and hands-on support to the core group. Developed Anandalahari Education package (local dialect) and trainer’s modules adapted from RIVER. Designed by the resource team from the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, in collaboration with the RIVER team.

Evaluation of RIVER materials and methodology and its outreach programmes by the MHRD and one-time grant in 1995 to develop infrastructure for conducting training programs. Infrastructure at RIVER- library, kitchen, dining hall, dormitories for 30 teachers, two seminar halls, two model schools on the RIVER campus

1995 – Other states approaching the RIVER – UP, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Maharashtra.

1996 – Development of DPEP Malayalam Education package and trainers modules adapted from RIVER. Designed by teachers, state resource group and Diet faculty from Kerala in collaboration with the RIVER team.

1997 – Apna path pitara (Math and Environmental Studies). Hindi version of Math and Ev.S. components of School in a Box, translated by the RIVER resource team.

1998-’99 – Prototype for School in a Box, 2nd edition. Designed by the RIVER team in 1998. Includes Telugu materials for Language, Math and Eves. S. Classes I to IV. Refined in 1999 after field-testing in the Rishi Valley Satellite Schools and Samskar Plan Schools, Nizamabad, AP.

1999– DPEP Telugu Education package and trainers modules. Adapted from School in a Box for AP Alternative Schools by the Andhra Pradesh Resource Team including resource persons from SCERT, DPEP, several DIETS, ITDA Paderu and Rampachodavaram, in collaboration with the RIVER team.

1998-2000– DPEP Hindi Education package and trainers modules. Adapted from School in a Box 2nd edition into a local-specific form for alternative schools in Lakhimpur kheri and Sonbadra Districts, UP. Designed by Resource persons from DPEP Uttar Pradesh in collaboration with the RIVER team.

1999-2001– Apna path pitara, Rishi Valley Hindi version of School in a Box 2nd edition (ClassesI & II). Designed by the RIVER team, with original contributions from specially commissioned children’s writers from north.

1999-2001– Organized several national workshops with partner organizations to address deeper issues in the planning and implementation of multi-grade programmes on a larger scale and to evolve strategies for training and networking among user groups.


2001– Tamil Education package and trainers modules designed by State Resource Persons of the Joyful learning programme, DIET faculty and resource Persons from Salem, Chennai Corporation schools, Pondicherry and Auroville in collaboration with RIVER.

2002– DPEP Andhra Pradesh multigrade materials and trainer’s modules adapted from School in a Box for formal Schools by resource persons from SPO DPEP, SCERT, Krishna, and Godavari & Chittoor districts, several DIETS, Dr Reddy’s Foundation, ITDA Paderu and Rampachodavaram, in collaboration with the RIVER team.

2003-06 – The Government of India – UNICEF Quality Package Project. This project is part of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a programme for universalisation of Quality Elementary education, and involves the use of RIVER methodology on a very large scale (totalling 12000 schools) across 12 states of the country.

2003-06 – Programmes for educational groups in Ethiopia, Peru, Germany, the Sierra Leone and Pakistan, are currently being worked out. During last few years RIVER has been approached by agencies in Thailand, Nepal, Spain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Maldives, Columbia and Cambodia, to study its materials and methodology for its potential applications in their countries. Collaborative Education Projects modelled on the RIVER approach have already been initiated for primary school children in southern Ethiopia.

2003-06 –University of Regensburg in Germany and University of Metz in France have initiated long-term exchange programmes and collaborative projects with RIVER including placement of students from their universities in RIVER projects.

2005 – Multigrade Trainer’s Resource Pack published with a grant from Sir Ratan Tata Trust, to serve both as an important tool for mass expansion at the macro-level and as a constant support for grass-root trainers in conducting RIVER trainings, monitoring, orientation and material development programmes at the micro-level.

2005 – RIVER awarded a price for the “Most Innovative Development Project” 41 by the Global Development Network (www.gdnet.org) for its work towards developing a community based educational model of self-sustainable school, as an instrument of lifting the community out of the continuously and increasingly degraded intellectual and environmental scenario.

Triumphs… Acceptance by the teaching faculty to take the task ahead, openness to adopt the methods and a quest for ever refining them

Sustained interest of both the teachers and the children in creating new and innovative methods (This has been the biggest success of the RIVER program so far)

41 This Award is given to the institution that holds the greatest degree of innovation and the potential for broad application of the project in other countries.


http://www.gdnet.org/

Winning continuous community support has been a major contributing factor for the success of the project.

… And ChallengesNeed for committed, oriented and trained teachers in large numbers

Ensuring a constantly optimum teacher-student ratio for the success of the model

Need to document these strategies and replicate them everywhere

Strengthen mechanisms for making the teacher and the community accountable to each other.

Need to reduce the resource crunch, human and financial, for mainstreaming further initiatives in educational research.

Need for long-term support for the resource agency so that it becomes self-sufficient. One-time or short term grants make the RIVER further dependent on various agencies for taking its initiatives forward. RIVER used to be supported by a continuous grant from the Ministry of Human Resources of the Government of India. The funding ended in March 2005. Presently, the centre is supported by grants from state government, Catholic Relief Services, Rishi Valley Education Centre and through donations and goodwill of the Rishi Valley School alumni.

Efforts must be made to include these MGML methods in the training curriculum at the DIET/SCERT level for a truly large-scale mainstreaming of the intervention.


Section 3Emerging Lessons from 17 Case Studies

In the decade of the 1990s the one of the main objectives that the government set for itself was enhancing enrolment and access. It was believed that once the access issue had been tackled the government could then move on to issues of learning. But even when the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) was at its peak, the ground evidence prompted a realisation that issues of access and quality are only intertwined. As DPEP gave way to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – the old tension between access and quality resurfaced. The first goal of SSA and indeed the MDGs is universal enrolment and bridging gender and social gaps in enrolment. As a result the first two years of SSA once again focused on enhancing access. It was during this period that individuals and organisations working with children raised the issue of learning. For example the Pratham sponsored Read India programme and the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER 2005) highlighted the dismal state of learning in schools. Organisations like MV Foundation – who were instrumental in getting children out of work and into school, raised an alarm about high drop out rates among mainstreamed children. Some state governments took the initiative to start quality improvement programmes, international agencies working in collaboration with the government also underscored the importance of improving quality of education.

Increasingly educationists and administrators have begun to acknowledge that given persistent difficulties in motivation and accountability of teachers, the impressive enrolment figures and improved transition and retention rates notwithstanding, most children leave government primary schools without basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. The recent IMRB survey42 also corroborates that while the number of out of school children may have come down considerably the drop out rates especially of children after the age of 10, continues to be very high. Another disturbing trend highlighted in a range of sample surveys and small qualitative studies is that formal enrolment in school does not always translate into regular attendance. Long spells of absence from school can not only be attributed to poverty and work burden of children, undoubtedly important, but also to the schooling experience.

Access and quality are two sides of the same coin – when we speak of access it means that children are going to school and learning. It may, therefore, be more appropriate to use the term ‘meaningful access’ – which encompasses the continuum from enrolment, regular attendance of children and teachers, availability of books and other learning materials, a learning environment in a functioning school and finally a place where children learn. This section attempts to synthesize the experience based on the 17 case studies and the ways in which access and issues of learning in the government school system have been addressed.

42 SRI, IMRB International: Survey on assessing the number of out of school children in the 6-13 years age group, commissioned by Department of Education, MHRD, GOI; unpublished report, November 2005


Ensuring meaningful access for children at risk:

Reviews of the experience of government initiatives including large scale programmes like DPEP and SSA indicate that almost all EFA initiatives gave primacy to expanding access, teacher training and logistical issues thereby bringing many more children into the school system. Teacher pupil ratios have improved considerably in most states. A range of pedagogic renewal processes have also been initiated viz., joyful learning and child centred approaches. Text book supply, mid-day meal and other incentives were also streamlined. Alongside, local committees were created to ensure closer linkages between parents and the schools. Both state governments and non-governmental players agree that government school teachers possess the requisite educational qualifications and further, have also undergone repeated training43. Recent NIEPA data compiled on parateachers suggest that the educational qualifications of parateachers are quite comparable to regular teachers44. Nevertheless after almost 9 years of DPEP and close to 5 years of SSA, learning levels continue to be poor and drop out rates are high.

Discussions among stakeholders within the government and outside, have raised new generation issues, viz. do the factors that inhibit effective learning in schools have more to do with broader systemic and governance issues like teacher absenteeism, actual teaching time (time on task), assessment processes and overall monitoring mechanisms45. Equally important is the focus on the inability of schools to give attention to every child. The discourse on quality education has become far more nuanced and the larger system now recognises that learning is as much an individual struggle / process for every child and the ability of teachers (and the administrative system governing schools) to recognise this and reach out to every single child could make a big difference.

A perusal of promising interventions from different parts of the country reveals that most of the interventions to improve quality of education have worked around the following principles:

Coming to terms with reality on the ground through a realistic assessment of the situation with respect to learning;

Addressing equity in planning through differential financial allocation and reaching out to disadvantaged groups in an empathetic and supportive manner;

Forging closer community, school and system linkages through real devolution of powers (not just responsibility) and enabling empowered local action;

Creating open communication channels between the education administrators / implementers and local officials, teachers, parents and children;

Energising the school system through improved classroom practice and assessment processes; strengthening science education through labs, centres and related activities and use of communication technology like the radio to reach out;

Building a nurturing system for assessment and developing monitoring systems that create a continuous link between the school and the academic and administrative support structures; and

43 This may not be the case across the country and recent learning outcome studies point out that teacher skills in mathematics and science remains a problem area. Dr Govinda of NIEPA argues that teachers who themselves went to poor quality schools may not be able to cope with the demands of higher classes in primary and upper primary.44 Arun Mehta, Elementary Education in India: Where do we stand, NIEPA, 200545 Rashmi Sharma and Vimala Ramachandran: The system and its shadow – an investigation into systemic factors framing quality and equity in elementary education, Draft report, May 2006, Educational Resource Unit; Azim Premji Foundation: Report of the First Learning Conference – 2004, Bangalore


Providing academic resource support to teachers and teacher educators in a manner that fosters creativity and respects teacher experience, skills and knowledge.

Confronting reality: Going beyond numbers

The gap between what official statistics claim and the ground reality had been an area of debate for many years now. This often becomes a contentious issue when people or organisations outside the education system collect data independently. However in some cases this has impelled educational planners to innovate. When the Jan Shikshan Abhiyan of 1996 recorded a much higher number of out of school children than officially admitted, instead of getting into a defensive mode the Government of Madhya Pradesh decided to introduce the Education Guarantee Scheme. This experience was soon emulated by other states, notably Andhra Pradesh. Household survey data became an integral part of educational planning in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan – which introduced it as a mandatory input into planning. The quality of household data is a matter of concern and DISE data that is compiled by NIEPA has yet to figure out a way of weaving in household data with DISE.

Another issue besides the quality of data is the veracity of the data reported that may not fully capture the ground reality. One has encounterd senior officials more than willing to come to grips with the actual ground scenario while lower officials are wary of communicating the real picture as this may raise questions on overall progress they rputinely report and in making them accountable. This situation is changing. There have been some effective efforts in the recent past to look at the actual ground situation even if the findings are uncomfortable. Acknowledging the problem in all its complexity and with all its imperfections represents a cognitive break with the past. We came across three approaches to confronting reality:

One, once the Chennai Corporation began to look at the issue of learning levels in Corporation schools, it started with a participatory exercise where the ‘maladies' in the educational system identified by the education administrators46. This exercise revealed that a child’s learning of basic academic skills is not ensured, the teacher dominates the classroom all the time, with little allowance for children to learn or develop on their own, it is assumed that all children will learn the same thing at the same time and in the same manner leading to a failure to address the multi-grade and multi-level nature of a classroom. The exercise also revealed that the teacher depends purely on conventional modes of teaching, teaching-learning material is rarely used as a normal practice, most of the materials used do not facilitate self-learning and the syllabus is ‘covered’ by the teacher but not necessarily by the child. The teachers acknowledged that there is no opportunity for the child to learn the lessons missed, if s/he is absent and that the evaluation methods are not scientific and neither the process nor results feed into classroom transactions. Similarly in Karnataka assessing learning levels of children by teachers was followed by testing by an independent agency. The results of the independent assessment were discussed with teachers, administrators and the community (as represented by the VEC or SEC). The Learning Guarantee Programme initiated by the Azim Premji Foundation in collaboration with the Government of Karnataka started with a clear picture of the scale of the challenge ahead.

Two, enabling the supervisory mechanism – meaning the block / cluster / mandal level academic resource persons – to directly test children and assess schools for themselves.

46 ABL Programme in the Schools of the Corporation of Chennai, Amukta Mahapatra (2006) in this volume.


Sharing this information at different levels highlighted both the scale of the problem as well the need for a collective engagement with reality. The Andhra Pradesh Quality Improvement Programme and Child Language Improvement Programme enabled both the teachers and administrators to move away from impersonal numbers, grapple with the learning levels of children in schools and honestly share lessons with each other, including the VEC / parents47.

Three, encouraging teachers and administrators (district and block levels) to assess the quality of school infrastructure and facilities on the one hand and learning levels of children on the other. Based on these profiles schools are graded on a five point scale to identify the extent of support required by each category of school. Again like in AP, the effort in the School Monitoring Profile Programme of Uttaranchal was to enable local level officials and the teachers to confront the .situation on the ground and use that as a point of departure in the planning process and also to inform monitoring 48. The results were mapped visually and used as an effective communication tool.

These approaches stem from a recognition that the malaise in the school system could (among other factors) be attributed to the separation of “hard data” on matters like enrolment, number of training programmes, number of teachers and so on from the “outcomes” as seen in the learning of children. Second, statistics are often compiled to provide a macro picture of the state or district while what the above practices show is the need to look at not only each and every school but focus equally was on children themselves.

Planning for equityAn emphasis on equity has been central to educational planning in India since the mid 1950s. It is enshrined in the Constitution and all official documents foreground the notion of equity. Yet, it continues to be elusive. Usually, this is attributed to lack of political will to make sure that every single child has access to a functioning school and insufficient allocation of financial resources.

At the formal level it could indeed be claimed that we have moved forward on both these counts. With the 83rd Constitutional Amendment making education a fundamental right, one could argue that political will is at last evident. Equally, the introduction of a 2 per cent education cess and enhanced allocations for elementary education has brought us closer to the goal of 6% of GDP for education. Nevertheless as the recent debate on the Right to Education Bill highlights, three major problem areas remain, namely:(a) The school system is highly differentiated and the poorest of the poor – especially in rural and tribal areas, in peripheral urban settlements and in sparsely populated regions – get far less resources than the better endowed areas. Equally, the continuation and proliferation of different forms of alternative schools also challenges the notion of equality. One set of interlocutors wants the bill to provide equal schooling for all children by introducing a common school system – wherein all schools are declared neighbourhood schools. Others argue that this may not be possible – given the political reality – and instead advocate reserving at least 25 to 30 per cent of seats in all private schools for children from disadvantaged communities. This latter aspect has to some extent been debated in some parts of the country, for example through an interim order of the Supreme Court of India private schools in New Delhi were asked to admit children from disadvantaged communities because they were provided land at

47 From QIP to CLIP – the case of AP, Bharat Patni (2006) in this volume48 School Monitoring Profile, Uttaranchal, Nishi Mehrotra (2006) in this volume


subsidised rates. The debate also focuses on the issue of parateachers – with most experts arguing against the practice of appointing parateachers who are paid far less than regular teachers for doing the same work. They are also critical about dilution of teacher qualifications – especially in a situation where parateachers cater to more disadvantaged children.

(b) The second challenge has to do with the Muslim minority community. There is considerable evidence that poor Muslim children – especially girls – are not accessing elementary education. Many of them are sent to Madarsas. The equity debate centres on the responsibility of the formal system to create an environment where religious schools could also provide secular education thereby enabling children, especially girls, to access modern education in addition to religious instruction.

(c) The third concern relates to tribal areas and the role of dialects and languages in the pedagogic process. Despite efforts by state governments, good quality education for tribal children continues to remain a challenge – especially in view of the fact that tribal areas are not well connected and people speak their own language – posing a huge problem for young children forced to learn in the majority language of the region.

The Assam DPEP/SSA initiative points to how commitment to affirmative action needs to be backed up by affirmative oriented planning and resource allocation49. Evidence based planning is what marks out the Assam effort. The planning process started with identification of areas and groups that needed urgent attention such as physically isolated regions, char & riverine areas, forest areas, flood-prone areas, tea gardens, areas of conflict (relief camps), girls, Muslims, urban deprived children and migrant children. At the same time an attempt was made to not only identify social groups that need special attention but also areas that because of location or agro-climatic conditions suffered disadvantage. A detailed list of underprivileged areas and groups was drawn up: tea gardens, educationally disadvantaged areas remote, inaccessible areas and other pockets subject to insurgency / ethnic conflict areas, urban slums and pockets of high incidence of child labour. The next stage in planning and budget preparation involved doing away broad unit costs and universal normative allocations, ensuring flexibility in norms and designing special packages to meet the specific requirements of these pockets of disadvantage.

The Assam effort underscores that for equity to be meaningfully addressed there is a need to back up policy and programmatic commitments to equity with flexibility in norms and preferential and increased allocation of resources to disadvantaged groups and area.

The Indus project in Virudhnagar is an initiative that addresses the very thorny issue of child labour working in hazardous industries. The current tendency to define all children out of school as child labour has tended to reduce attention to children working in hazardous industries. The Virudhnagar initiiave offers some interesting insights on how to address this group. The project has adopted an integrated approach of providing alternative leaning routes such as the transitional education centres for mainstreaming of children, providing cash incentives to children, launching an intensive social campaign reaching out to communities as well as employers and above all addressing the livelihood concerns of the families concerned through convergent support from related departments. Here too the agency of key officials such as the District Collector has been instrumental in the project being very effective and children actually being withdrawn from work.

49 Planning for equitable education – the experience of Assam, Dr. Deepa Das (2006) in this volume


Success however often brings new challenges in its wake. One outcome of this project has been that child labour in the project area has in a sense gone underground, out of the public domain into a private space. For example in Sivakasi, children have been withdrawn from match factories and now do the same work within homes of employers. This underscores the need for being alert as well as getting a deeper understanding of the varied and new forms that child labour has taken to be able to tackle the problem. The more significant learning is the need to move away from generic definitions of child labour to a more nuanced understanding of the problem

The efforts made under DPEP in some states to reach out to Muslim children through working with Maktabs, in particular the Government of Madhya Pradesh, are noteworthy50. The MP Government recognised the critical role of the Madarsa Board in reaching out to Muslim children and set out to evolve a partnership of mutual trust and respect with the existing Madarsa Board. The mutually agreed upon strategy was to add the formal mainstream curriculum to the Deeni Talim (religious instruction) of the madarsas. While there is so far little authentic information on the learning levels of Muslim children as a result of this initiative, the efforts to reach out to Madarsas across the state, does represent a positive .move.

For long now it was taken as axiomatic that the government is the prime agency to ensure equal access and equal quality and affirmative action policies are the key instrumentalities to neutralise historically determined discrimination. While the role of the state is certainly important in terms of affirmative policies and resource allocations, low teacher motivation, negative teacher attitudes and prejudices and the insensitivity of key players in the education field often end up diluting if not distorting well-intentioned policies and programmes. It is here that the agency of the individual comes into play; macro strategies to ensure equal access and quality fall between the cracks when teachers look the other way.

The MV Foundation initiative to create an association of teachers (Bala Karmika Vimochana Vedika – BKVV Teachers Forum for elimination of child labour) is noteworthy in this regard51. Reminiscent of the Adhyapika Manch (a forum for women teachers) under the Lok Jumbish, this programme motivates teachers to make them more empathetic to the specific needs and situations of child labour.

Enabling empowered actionThe role of a community-based forum in the form of a village education committee or a parent-teachers association in ensuring accountability has been long acknowledged. Particularly post National Policy on Education 1986, this was made a sine qua non of a good education system. School committees were as essential components of all the EFA projects (Bihar Education Project, APPEP, Lok Jumbish, UP Basic Education Project etc..), the District Primary Education Project and now Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Several states have made statutory provisions for such committees. The 73 rd

Constitutional Amendment, whereby powers have been devolved to Panchayati Raj Institutions, also provide for education committees.

Though all these committees exist on the ground a review of the nature of community involvement in primary education reveals that even as responsibilities are devolved, the committees rarely have any real power to ensure school/ teacher accountability or better performance.52 It must have to be admitted that under some of the projects and definitely under SSA these committees have played a key role in infrastructure

50 Combining Deeni Talim and Duniyavi Taleem – Madrasa Education in MP, Dr. Shobhita Rajagopal (2006) in this volume51 Transforming APs government school teachers – an MVF intervention, Bharat Patni (2006) in this volume


development. The moot point is that if the schools have to be made accountable for the learning of the children then these local committees need to have responsibilities backed up with real power to ensure and demand accountability of the school system. The National Curriculum Framework 2005, however, pointed out the possibility of tensions and conflicts arising between panchayats and their school committees as well as between the local committees / local bodies and the education administration.

The steps taken by the Nagaland Government for devolving powers to local bodies serves as an excellent example of how to empower local committees and bodies. The Nagaland Communitisation Programme was initiated with the objective of promoting government-community partnership for education at the grassroots level53. The objective was to give teeth to the goal of empowered community involvement. For the first time the concept of community participation went beyond the devolving of responsibilities to actual transfer of power to local bodies. Under this programme the community was empowered through delegation of powers to the VEC to manage and supervise government schools, and ensure the accountability of government employees as VECS now disburse teacher salaries. Under the Communitisation Act, the VEC can invoke the “no work, no pay” principle and take appropriate disciplinary action against erring teachers. The deductions from the salary are used by the committee to fund any other school based activities.

The composition of the VEC was also expanded to a wider group of stakeholders. In a communitised village, the Village Council constitutes a Village Education Committee (VEC). The VEC comprises a VEC chairman selected by the Council and the following members – Village Development Board (VDB) Secretary, head teacher of the communitised school, three representatives from among parents (which includes at least one woman), two representatives of teachers, a member from the Village Council, a representative each from different church denominations in the village, two members from the village community which includes, at least, one woman, sub inspector of school (SIS) of the area and the head teacher of the Government Middle School (GMS) as member secretary.

In one stroke the Government of Nagaland not only devolved responsibilities but also transferred powers to local committees. It is important to note that this radical step was not confined to devolution of powers in the education sector alone but also included public utilities, water supply, roads, forests, power, sanitation, health and other welfare /developmental schemes. This is the key – efforts in one sector are unlikely to succeed unless the larger environment is made more conducive to the programme.

The Pratham programme is an NGO led initiative in Kutch, Gujarat to work towards empowering existing Village Education Committees54. The Rural Community Approach Programme was initiated after the 2000 earthquake left the school system devastated. The Pratham effort covers 500 schools in rural Kutch. It operates on the premise that creating a committee such as a VEC is insufficient unless these committees become proactive and therefore the VECs are provided sustained inputs to enable them to play this role

Recognising the importance of the role of the elected PRI bodies and to overcome any potential conflict with the panchayat, an interface was created between the VEC, panchayats and the larger community through the Shikshan Gram Sabhas. The gram

52 R. Govinda (ed), Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2003.53 Communitisation of elementary education in Nagaland, Parismita Singh and Matum Ashok (2006) in this volume54 The Prathamintervention in Kutch, Gujarat, Niti Saxena (2006) in this volume


sabhas are the forums where educated older children are invited to volunteer to work with younger ones to improve their reading and writing skills. Equally, the performance of the children in school is presented in the gram sabha in the form of a child-wise Dhan Patrak (educational profile of each child).

Facilitating two way communicationsExperience of working the Right to Information Act clearly demonstrates that transparency and communication are intertwined. Equally, if we (meaning the government and all other stake holders) truly believe that UEE is possible only with the active support and involvement of parents and the larger community – improving information flow and communication becomes a priority. There is a public perception t that governments and large NGOs are not transparent about their intentions, plans and also the action that they have decided to take. Free flow of information upwards, downwards and laterally and the freedom to communicate with decision-makers therefore becomes an important dimension. Under the Right to Information Act the government is required in law to provide information but the onus of “demanding” is on the civil society.

In recent times public debates on transparency and communication have tended to focus on civil society’s access to information. However, issues of communication within the government system – between high-level policymakers and the implementers, between supervisors and teachers and between the academic wing and administrative wings are only now receiving some attention.

The Nagaland Communitisation programme was successful in creating a broad base of support by systematically communicating the programme and linking it to traditional systems of local governance. Between evolving the concept in January 2001 and the promulgation of an Ordinance in March 2002, the government made efforts to systematically communicate the main objectives and the working mechanisms to the administrative system and local government institutions. It appears that the “broader” consensus building was instrumental in blunting any opposition from teachers unions or the administration.

Assessment has always been a contentious issue feared by both teachers and administrators given its potential to “expose” the real picture. At the same time assessment of learning outcomes is integral to monitoring quality. It is in this context that the LGP strategy of communication provides useful lessons55. Well before the programme was rolled out, the Azim Premji Foundation had already evolved communication strategy with the help of professionals. From the beginning it was recognized that communication was essential to build trust, especially when working in partnership with government on the one hand and local communities on the other. At the same time it was essential to reassure all stakeholders that participation in the LGP was purely voluntary.

Like in the case of the LGP programme, the strength of the Pratham initiative in Kutch lies in ensuring accountability to the community through sustained dissemination of school data and the learning of children. The Dhan Patrak (the educational profile of individual children) works as a powerful tool that enables the parents to track the progress of their children. It is interesting that child profiles are now developed by many programmes and computerised child tracking mechanisms are much sought after. What the Pratham experience shows is that information on every child can become a

55 LGP Programme. Karnataka, Vimala Ramachandran (2006) in this volume


powerful tool in the hands of the parents and the larger community as represented by the Shiksha Gram Sabha.

The CLIP programme in Andhra Pradesh too is noteworthy in this regard, though this programme does not do “anything new”; it effectively gears up the system to do what it is supposed to in the normal course, i.e., monitor the academic functioning of schools56. The officials are expected to spend the entire day in the school and stay back to share their experience with the school committee and the panchayat. The SPD publicised his mobile phone numbers to all the schools – including the children. Anyone from any part of the state can call him to share an experience or to draw attention to a problem.

Energising the schoolPrimary schools have received unprecedented attention in the last fifteen years. Most UEE programmes have paid attention to teacher training, TLM, child-centred pedagogy, improved infrastructure and so on. The effort at making attending school a joyful experience include pedagogic renewal programmes, making the classroom child friendly; and developing activity based learning material and teacher support materials. The DPEP programme made special efforts to en-gender the teaching-learning process by addressing the concern in textbooks, teacher training and in the overall school environment and facilities. Therefore, the notion of energising the school is not new and has long been a key focus area in elementary education.

An important criticism of initiatives like the DPEP is that these strategies were implemented in a modular fashion – for example teacher training are not always linked to textbook development. The various dimensions of quality are rarely woven together viz. the ability of a teacher to teach creatively and make the classroom child friendly is not about teaching-learning materials and textbooks alone. It is inextricably linked to how the teacher is treated in the system, the autonomy he/she enjoys and the sense of accountability to children and parents. Treating each “input” as a unit and not seeing the entire education process as an organic whole is a big handicap.

The innovative programmes reviewed provide useful insights in this area. The Activity Based Learning programme in Chennai, the Rishi Valley Education Programme, Active Schools Latur, the QIP and CLIP programme of Andhra Pradesh, the Pratham Initiative in Gujarat and ILIP in West Bengal all foreground the agency of the teacher in bringing about change. Working with the teacher as the lynchpin in the process of change demands going beyond formal training and material production – it starts with efforts to kindle the self motivation and enthusiasm of the teachers by appealing to their creativity and desire for satisfaction in their work.

In the Active Schools programme in Latur, Maharashtra the district authorities exposed selected teachers to good practices in different parts of the country and then encouraged them to conceptualize they own strategy57. After a successful experiment in one school the district authorities expanded it to one school each in 15 clusters. This was expanded to 117 schools and is now being considered for expansion throughout the entire district. As a first step the teachers mobilised parents and other community members to participate in school improvement. Self learning materials were developed for group activities and time table was reorganised. They also introduced Chawdi Vachan (reading skill demonstration before community), sharing of report cards and discussion with parents on regular basis. This was followed by “gat sammelan” cluster level meetings to review progress and share experiences thereby providing an

56 From QIP to CLIP – the case of AP, Bharat Patni (2006) in this volume57 Active Schools – Latur, Binay Pattanayak (2006) in this volume


opportunity to use locally available material. Since the teachers played a key role in designing this intervention, there is a high degree of ownership and the outcomes of this process are just beginning to become apparent. Learning outcomes are reported to be comparatively higher in the Active Schools as compared to other schools. There have also been reports of children from private schools moving to government schools.

The Quality Improvement Programme, a precursor to the CLIP programme (Children Language Improvement Programme) in Andhra Pradesh, used the accelerated learning method similar to the “Learning to Read” programme of Pratham Education Initiative, whereby a time-bound 45 day programme was introduced to enable children to learn to read and acquire basic numeracy and arithmetic competencies58. The drawbacks of this approach were soon evident. As the SPD, SSA explained , “There was no visible change in the mindset of the teachers after the 45-day period of intervention. Further, it was also back to normal business for everyone in the system as soon as the 46 th day dawned! What was required was a seamless and continuous intervention during the academic session”.

Essentially the CLIP programme moved away from a time-bound mode to one where the teachers were expected to use the techniques they had learnt in QIP round the year. Further, it was decided to focus on developing the language skills of children in classes 1 to 3. This was backed up by a rigorous monitoring system wherein all supervisory and academic support institutions were expected to visit schools continuously to monitor what was happening inside the classroom. The important lesson from this initiative is that pedagogic creativity does not lead to appreciable change unless it is backed up by systemic efforts to monitor learning rather than merely generating data on enrolment and transition. The message from CLIP is clear – it is only the extent of sustained interest shown and personal involvement of DEOs, Dy DEOs, and DIET Principals which will make the difference in the field.

The Integrated Learning Improvement Programme (ILIP) of West Bengal tries to combine efforts to improve classroom pedagogy with empowerment and capacity building of teachers59. The core strategy for this program is empowerment and capacity building of the teachers to move away from the monologue style of imparting education prevalent in most government schools and make them realize that all children can progress within a stipulated time, children learn among themselves and the role of a teacher has to be that of a facilitator.

Workbooks on existing textbooks were developed, spelling out the competencies required through a set of learning tasks. Teachers and children are given the freedom to improvise. Evidently, teachers have responded positively as Moushami, a school teacher put it “using these worksheets impacts the processes in the class”.

The purpose of the worksheet is much more than building academic competency. It is an exercise in building the self confidence of the average learner that she too can demonstrate achievement! 30% of the worksheets were so designed to ensure that 80% of children could complete the task easily. A sense of achievement obviously is a key denominator in keeping a child interested in being in school

Reaching children and schools in remote areas has been a major challenge. In recent years the efforts to use the broadcast media such as radio as a tool for teacher training as well as classroom instruction merit attention. The Karnataka state government, for instance, has developed radio programmes named ‘Keli Kali’ and these are being aired

58 From QIP to CLIP – the case of AP, Bharat Patni (2006) in this volume59 ILIP - West Bengal, Shaktibrata Sen and Shruthi Nag (2006) in this volume


since the year 2000. The Chukki Chinna programmes of EDC have replaced the Keli Kali programmes from classes 1 – 5, and the Keli Kali programmes for classes 6 – 8 are continuing. CLR, Pune too has developed strategies for English language instruction using the radio. In Jharkhand too, the radio has been used to strengthen aural comprehension through a storytelling programme.

The Interactive Radio Initiative in Karnataka (part of the dot-EDU T4 project of the Education Development Centre Inc India (EDC)) is a distance education programme targeting students in classes I to V and focuses on Maths, Science and Social Studies instruction. Started as a pilot project for classes IV and V, in 2005 the programme expanded to include Classes I to III and today reaches 50,000 primary schools in the State60.

Both teachers and students are engaged everyday for about half an hour in a series of radio instructed activities that encourage interaction between students and teachers and between the teachers themselves. The radio lesson then becomes the point of departure to enliven a classroom experience which could otherwise be quite dry.

It is also significant that the radio programmes have been shaped as to strengthen and support the teacher in her role as a facilitator and the pivotal guide to learning in the classroom. Although the content ensures higher learning gains among the children, the activity-based format of the programmes are a regular source of teacher training. Hence the programmes have a ‘dual audience’ approach – targeting both the children as well as the teacher.

However it is important to remember that the teacher cannot be substituted by the radio. For every radio programme to translate into an effective learning process, the preparedness of the teacher for transacting the lesson being broadcast becomes critical. While it maybe too early to assess the impact of this initiative, preliminary indications are that student attendance and attention during the radio lesson has improved significantly. Further a shadow audience of parents, shop keepers, SDMC members and generally all radio users is in the making!!

Once again like all good ideas, the overall drawbacks in the system could undermine the best of innovations--lack of space and crowded classrooms, teacher absenteeism, lack of sustained monitoring especially in remote areas.

Generally quality improvement interventions tend to limit themselves to improving basic language and arithmetic skills of children at the elementary level. It is in this context that Agastya Foundation’s work in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka provides valuable insights into how schools can be energised from the outside using science education as a platform61. It is widely acknowledged that learning science in a creative and fun way can dramatically stimulate children. It addresses the child’s desire for exploration and to unlock the mysteries that surround her.

It is noteworthy that the Agastya Foundation decided to concentrate on government schools because they wanted to make education more interesting for poor children / disadvantaged groups. To this end, they turned their attention to children – working to wean them away from rote learning and discover the joy of creativity. They did this by addressing curricular issues outside the classroom through science centres, mobile labs, science fairs, library and activities. The Foundation drew upon a resource pool of renowned scientists who were involved in planning the intervention and at the local

60 IRI – the case of Karnataka, Dr. Suchitra Vedant (2006) in this volume61 Strengthening science education – Agastya International Foundation, Rashmi Sharma (2006) in this volume


level encourages retired science teachers and others interested in science to help the initiative.

The impact of the Agastya Foundation interventions needs to be viewed in the overall context of government schools, where the standards of science teaching are often low, and even teachers are rarely clear about all the concepts (in fact at the upper primary level, sometimes teachers who have not studied science themselves at the high school level often end up teaching science). The capacity of students to benefit from the intervention depends upon their understanding of basic concepts. One mobile lab instructor admitted that while children could understand basic things such as the difference between domestic and wild animals, they found it difficult to understand the several principles of science, despite the very high quality of instruction in the mobile lab. Such a programme, therefore, needs to be dovetailed with improving science teaching inside the classroom, as has been ably demonstrated through the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme of Eklavya in Madhya Pradesh.

Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge the value of such interventions in energising the school system. The ability of the Agastya Foundation to involve eminent scientists in the teaching of science in school underscores the importance of taking a hard look at the content of science as well as the way it is taught in schools. This is also an interesting example of how the government can forge partnerships with institutions of higher learning and the science research establishments. In today’s India where many new industries are knowledge based this issue acquires a sense of urgency.

While under SSA, education of children in urban areas is receiving attention, there are not many examples of successful efforts that have managed to overcome the complex realities of urban poor children. Sharp class divisions, the perception of the irrelevance of formal education in the life of a poor working child, and the uncertainty of life in general, all make the school the last choice for a poor family and often push chidren not only into work but also into petty thieving and drug abuse. Taking this harsh reality head-on, the government initiative of offering skill based education at the elementary level in urban Chandigarh schools is indeed a bold one. In a sense this goes against conventional wisdom of not introducing vocational education at the elementary level.

The Chandigarh initiative shows how through the introduction of skills that a community perceives as relevant and identified through community consultations, the schools have managed to score on several levels--never enrolled and school drop outs have been brought into the school, the skill training has led students not only to learn a skill and competently apply it in practice, but also created the environment where basic learning skills of reading, writing and numeracy have been enthusiastically acquired by the children. Through the variety of skills offered, children and teachers have also been able to explore their more expressive interests and inadvertently this initiative has contributed to a more holistic education for the children as well as making the teaching learning experience more meaningful for the teachers themselves There are no doubt several challenges--ensuring that all the children in this programme gain the basic competencies of the elementary level, and ensuring that families do not compel the child to work. The best advocates for education seem to be the children themselves. In a rapidly urbanising situation where the numbers of urban out of school are large, strategies of mainstreaming children need to be varied and the Chandigarh initiative offers an example of how a conventional formal school can adapt itself to meet the learning and skill development needs of urban poor children. The key elements here seem to be willingness to experiment and centring the intiative on the lived realities of the urban poor.


In an effort to provide regular academic support to teachers several types of institutional mechanisms have been put in place. The DIETs that were set up in the 80’s and the Block and Cluster level Resource Centres that came up in 90’s are part of this endeavour. A precursor to these was the Goa School Complexes programme set up in the 1970’s to provide sustained academic support to schools and teachers to enhance both teaching and school performance62. While the core of the school complex initiative is to establish an organic support system between different levels of schools, the in-built hierarchy in the education system seems to have taken over, with lead schools seeking to guide rather than support, and often guiding with no or little understanding of the needs of the primary school. Further teachers at different levels tend to interpret the school complex scheme as one that has brought in more rigid school inspection instead of support. Their constant refrain is: why should we be ‘cross-checked’ by teachers and others who are working in different institutions? This observation perhaps stems from the nature of interactions between different levels so far – on the whole, it points out the inadequate mental, intellectual and emotional preparation that is needed for collective work, problem solving, sharing of ideas, leading to increased accountability. While there is no disagreement that schools require sustained academic support, the experience of the Goa School Complex shows how the form can overtake the spirit of an initiative. Structures cannot enable goals attainment unless a shared vision of the long term objectives is built among the different players, and processes that allow for democratic sharing of knowledge are put in place.

Monitoring and assessmentThe sheer scale of the Indian elementary school system with 7.67 primary schools and 2.75 lakh upper primary schools is mind-boggling! Monitoring such a vast system can prove to be a nightmare for any government. Even so, in the last twenty years the government has introduced national (DISE) as well as state specific data gathering mechanisms. Notwithstanding these commendable efforts the data gathering mechanisms have been gradually divorced from monitoring and assessment. The numbers collected and collated – at best – give us a glimpse of scale of the initiatives rather than quality. This realisation has led some state governments to move towards a decentralised system that not only captures numbers of schools and children in school but attempts to introduce parameters that could help them assess quality.

The Uttaranchal School Monitoring system is an interesting initiative (albeit fairly new and still evolving)63. This was developed to categorise schools according to physical facilities as well as learning outcomes. An additional innovation in Uttaranchal is the generation of school performance maps at state, district and taluka levels. This visualisation works as an effective communication tool, as it “has great value in creating an immediate impact on any audience – because it gives a clear picture of the educational scenario within any geographic boundary.”64 It is, however, important to note that the government has just begun to use the data for strategic planning and it is too early to .comment on the outcomes. The school grading system is also being showcased by Government of India as a possible model to weave in some quality parameters. One positive fallout is that officials at all levels of the bureaucracy talk about this and - “Koti karan” (meaning grading) – has become a buzz word.

62 School Complexes of Goa, K M Sheshagiri (2006) in this volume63 The Uttaranchal SM programmes dates back to the UP DPEP effort to grade schools according to physical facilities and teacher availability at the cluster level. This was modified by Uttaranchal in 200364 Deepa Das, Implementation and functioning of the School Monitoring System in Uttaranchal, (unpubl monograph) September 2004


ILIP of West Bengal has tried to give substance to the idea of continuous and timely assessment. Since teaching and competency building have been broken down into a set of teaching and learning tasks, evaluation follows a similar logic-- instantaneous evaluation at the end of each task, day to day recapitulation at the end of every days lesson, weekly/periodic evaluation, terminal evaluation at the end of a specified module to be capped by a final evaluation at the end of the academic year.

Local specific innovation going to scaleHow does a local specific innovation go to scale? The RIVER programme of Krishnamurti Foundation of India is an interesting example of how an innovation that started by responding to local specific needs developed into a “model” that is being emulated in different parts of the country and even spread to other countries. The experience of working in 13 schools in Rishi Valley helped in developing a mechanism for multi-grade and multi-level learning. Way back in 1992 the Rishi Valley experience inspired the Nali Kali programme in Mysore District of Karnataka. Subsequently the generic lessons from the RIVER programme have been adapted in different parts of the country65.

The RV Education centre was clear that what were being scaled up was not their “model” but the broad framework and generic principles. The principle characteristic of this process is the flexibility and the freedom to transcreate to suit different contexts. This approach lent itself to enable local ownership in the contexts in which it was adopted.

The process of scaling up created challenges of acceptability and ownership. The problems surfaced when considering scaling up. There was resistance to the idea of adopting a model. Here it was REC’s firm commitment to showcasing the flexibility in the model and its ability to incorporate local cultures that won the day. Apprehensions were allayed to some extent and teachers were willing to experiment and try out the approach. It clearly showed that it is difficult to accept a model designed by others, but taking the framework and revitalizing it with a local flavour gives ownership both to the teachers and the learners.”66

65 Upscaling an innovation – the Rishi Valley experience, P Prashanti and Padma, 2006 in this volume66 ABL programme in schools of the Corporation of Chennai, Amukta Mahapatra, 2006 in this volume


Conclusion: when do promising innovations become best practices?Even as we are correct in being excited with innovations, in themselves uncommon, not all promising innovations mutate into becoming best practices. For a start, they take time. New initiatives driven by committed individuals with a vision provide valuable lessons but they cannot be called best practices. Sustainable change becomes possible only when the practices are embedded into the system and become a part and parcel of implementation and monitoring processes. While programme or project specific systems and structures are necessary conditions for success they are not sufficient to ensure that it is sustained over a period of time. Particularly in government it is equally important to create statutory and legal mechanisms and nurture a different work culture.

Innovation and discipline go together – a certain degree of discipline is essential for innovation to move from a one-off activity to a process. A particular activity may inject energy into the system thus tipping the entire system to perform differently for a short period of time. For example, the Nali kali programme in Karnataka was triggered off by a study tour to Rishi Valley followed by efforts to adapt the model to suit the ground realities of H D Kote in Mysore district. This released a lot of energy and the pilot programme worked remarkably well for a few years and till such time as the leadership driving the change was involved. As time went by and as the government tried to up scale it upto many more areas – the magic was lost. People involved in the programme during the start-up days recall events and outcomes with a sense of nostalgia. While some processes and some techniques have survived in bits and pieces in various parts of Karnataka, excitement and pride are now referred to in the past tense67.

Similar experiences can be narrated in the case of the Total Literacy Campaign (early phase 1988-1993), Lok Jumbish of Rajasthan, Jan Shala programme in several states, Shiksha Samakhya of Madhya Pradesh and some interesting initiatives within the DPEP programme. Discussions with individuals who were involved in such initiatives reveals that a long term perspective was often missing. Most of them seemed to be working in a three to five year time-frame and were unable to engage with sustaining the enthusiasm and the programme over a long time frame, even though they admit that it was a wonderful experience and felt really good while it lasted. It is not uncommon to hear programme leaders say that continued success depends on “committed leadership”. These innovations were dependent on the quality of leadership. When new processes are not embedded in the system an insensitive official can destroy many years of hard work. Supportive leadership is, therefore, equally essential to create a core that can carry the process forward within the organisation. External facilitation may be necessary up to a point. However, beyond a particular stage, the impetus must come from within the system.

Creating structures and systems necessary to sustain and make the “innovation” an integral part of the system is critical. Working through administrative and financial procedures and negotiating each element of the change process within the system is vital. Often this is the most routine and painstaking part of the process and most innovators do not always have the aptitude or the staying power to go through with it step-by-step. Failure to take on board the finance and administrative requirements can

67 For a detailed discussion on the early phase of the programme see Vimala Ramachandran (ed): Getting Children Back to School: case studies in primary education, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2003.


undermine the programme. Often the programme leaders do not include their finance and administrative staff in programmes training. As a result they do not appreciate programme issues and go by standard interpretation of rules and financial procedures. In most cases, programme staff does not see their colleagues in finance and administration as partners. Consequently, the attitude of the latter is not very favourable to the former, leading to innumerable bottlenecks. Similarly, creating a sense of ownership among the larger education community, parents and the administration is essential if the innovation is to be sustained beyond the tenure of the pioneer68.

In the late-1980s the Government of Rajasthan initiated a campaign to enrol girls in school. At the end of the campaign, officials in the women's programme were alarmed to note that many school teachers sent the girls back home citing space and number constraints. Here was a doable task, i.e., mobilising communities to send the girls to school. But since they were not trained to analyse the situation, anticipate problems and evolve strategies to overcome bottlenecks, unexpected reactions affected motivation. Equally, the inability of the education system to prepare the schools and orient the teachers for a sudden influx of children – that too first generation school goers – led to enormous disappointment and wastage. No wonder that almost ten years down the line people working in the women’s programme remained apprehensive about participating in similar enrolment campaigns. Such experiences invariably dampen the spirit, making every new task more difficult. Anticipating bottlenecks, discussing them frankly and working out strategies to overcome them, is an integral part of any successful innovation.

Creating a nurturing environment, giving positive strokes at the right time, reinforcing the objective of the effort to mainstream quality concerns, reiterating its critical role in achieving organisational goals of universal elementary education, affirmation and friendly and constructive criticism – all these go into sustaining the process long enough for it to leave a lasting impact. Changing attitudes, work-styles and redefining priorities cannot be achieved overnight. Therefore, reinforcement and affirmation needs to be seen as an integral part of the process.

At the root of most successful innovations is a recognition of the dynamics of change and learning. The relationship between ideas and change is dynamic i.e., living through change is a learning process and this, in turn, provides new insights and new ideas for action. Action in turn propels change. How people learn, internalise what they learn and finally apply that knowledge to propel change is a fascinating process. Most innovative programmes are products of such insights.

It is important to acknowledge that this process is not a purely cerebral exercise. Knowing something is qualitatively different from internalising that knowledge. Many of us believe that knowledge and consciousness precedes action. In conventional development jargon we talk of training and sensitisation. Mechanical transfer of information does not automatically result in conviction, confidence to act on that conviction and motivation for action. Innovation is a creative process and which involves both the mind and the heart. Take any interesting or effective learning programme – there will certainly be a group of people who feel passionately about the

68 Discussing the resistance faced from parents to joyful learning processes in Nalikali Ms Anita Kaul said that the failure of the programme leadership to take parents into confidence and explain the new teaching learning system could be attributed to poor communication and negotiation with all the stakeholders. (Presentation made in the Learning Conference organized by Azim Premji Foundation, Bangalore, July 2004).


right of every child to good quality education. It is equally important to recognise that individuals can trigger change and inject energy – but we need systems to sustain them.

The journey from a successful innovation to a best practice is fraught with challenges. The fifteen programmes / projects that we have documented have promise. But they cannot be called “best practices” – as yet. Notwithstanding this caveat, it is possible to draw important lessons from them, as discussed above.

The overarching message from this exercise is that there are a number of interlocking elements that go to make the education system. Each one is organically linked to the other and sustainability hinges on the ability of the pioneers to systematically weave in practices and processes into the very fabric of the system. Teacher training alone cannot improve teaching and learning processes nor increase the time spent on the main task. Addressing administrative, personnel and other issues alongside accountability systems could help us turn the corner. A systemic, not a piecemeal approach, is needed even though we may start from one point. A virtuous process needs to be set in motion where an innovation – even if limited – demonstrates tangible outcomes. As a result the input processes improve in the next round and the initiative gathers greater support within the system. The second round could take the practice to a higher level, further improving outcomes and gaining more champions in the system. This could – if managed right – set in motion a virtuous spiral of change.

Sustaining innovations or going to scale is not just a techno-managerial exercise. It is inherently political. Negotiating with people who have entrenched vested interest in maintaining statusquo cannot be underestimated. The education community watched with dismay when so many “innovations” are dismantled or allowed to fade away. It is now fairly well known that the inability of the pioneers to negotiate with the larger system and build in a sense of ownership is partly responsible for the demise of promising practices. Equally, excessive dependence on the agency of one individual as the driving spirit also erodes credibility. We have a lot to learn from failures, something that requires a lot of courage to interrogate. Unfortunately the trajectory of failure is rarely documented. May be the time has come to seriously analyse why innovations with promise are not sustained and what happens when programmes are taken to scale without adequate preparation. Such an exercise may give us greater insights and help the government and the non-governmental players to take promising practices to scale and ensure sustainability.

The futures lie in moving from individual excellence to institutional excellence – where the government (centre and state) takes pride in turning the education system around and gear it to deliver good quality education for all.

If we look at the country as a whole a large number of vulnerable children have been provided access in different ways – from bridge courses to alternative schools, EGS schools and residential learning centres. However the government also agrees that small pockets continue to remain problematic and among them are children in very difficult circumstances – like children of sex workers, migrant labour, nomadic communities and children with special needs. It is important to reiterate that almost all vulnerable children and those from very poor households enrol in government schools. Therefore improving the quality of education in government schools will bring us closer to the realisation of the equity and quality goals of UEE.


Documents

Section 1: - Prathampratham.org/file/Gujrat 1doc.doc · Web view2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers for Class III 3-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers for Class IV 4-digit numbers by