Medak Summer Camp Initiation 2008

Pratham was started in the year 1994 in Mumbai with assistance coming from the quarters of UNICEF. The Mumbai chapter of Pratham was joined by Sunita Burra, current State Head of Pratham Andhra Pradesh in the month of September 2004. Post undertaking a research on assessment in L2R teaching techniques of Pratham, a significant decision was taken, which was to help Pratham's chapter to germinate in the deccan state of Andhra Pradesh.  

In Janurary 2005, in order to understand the educational initiatives already being undertaken in AP, Pratham organized a meeting in Hyderabad with key educational NGO's like Satyam Foundation, Byrraju Foundation, Svyam Krushi sangam (Medak), LFT in Vijayanagaram district, Lion Welfare Trust etc. Along with this cooperation initiative a joint proposal was prepared in negotiation with other NGOs for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in AP in order to get permission from SSA for the beginning of the conduction of a quality improvement programme in 10 schools of Hyderabad district. Thus, Pratham AP started its teaching activities in the month of March 2005. The beginning of Pratham's AP chapter was marked with the activity of conducting a pilot project on Learning to Read teaching techniques in 10 schools of Hyderabad district.  

Pratham at this juncture deputed its school team that included volunteers, head masters and govt school teachers. A three day training programnme was then conducted for this Pratham school quality improvement team with Master Trainers & Resource Persons from Pratham as well as other educational NGOs working in the state of AP. At this point Teacher Learning Material prepared by Pratham for the programme was also reviewed along with DIET's (District Institute for Education and Training) principals in the state. At this time two members of Pratham Mumbai, Parveen and Ruhi came down to AP from Mumbai for undertaking the task of supervision of schools in which quality improvement initiative of Pratham was being undertaken.  

Having assessed the impact of Pratham's germination programmes in the state earlier that year, SSA granted Pratham the permission to implement a programme based on L2R teaching techniques for 6 districts of the state. Therefore in the month of July of the same year, Pratham AP's dream of getting a sanction to run its In-School programme in the government schools of 6 districts of Andhra Pradesh with the total expected goal of covering about 68,000 children under its L2R teaching technique came true. Basing its decision on the impactful results of pilot project of Pratham's quality improvement programme in Hyderabad district, SSA gave sanction to Pratham to undertake work in districts of Guntur , East Godavari, Vijayanagaram, Kurnool , Medak and Hyderabad . The state SSA gave permission to undertake L2R classes in 2 Mandals each of the 6 district in Andhra Pradesh.  

In 2006, Pratham AP worked in 102 bastis with funding coming from Dell for 25 bastis, while GE funded 77 bastis. The In School programme conceptualized as catalytic programme was initiated in 165 schools in 5 mandals of the city. Also for the catalytic programme, 600 govt. teachers were trained to run L2R and Balvachan classes along with the distribution of set of library books to 364 government schools. Mother Contact Programme was yet another significant progressive programme conducted in all the slums pockets surrounding the schools. Within the In School programme, a Science programme with the support of Aid India was implemented with a cumulative coverage in 670 classes. The year 2006 also saw 6 new mandals running a pilot of community partnership for 4 months. The model was based on Read India Campaign which included the activities of loud reading and door to door TLM usage for non readers.  

DIRECT  

The target group for DIRECT programme is economically under privileged children. Pratham while serving this target group is aware of the fact that in order to effectively serve children for creating a sustainable impact, one also needs to work closely with parents and members of their family. Also Pratham ensures that within this target group, no distinction is made between children belonging to different castes, religions or genders. The fundamental effort of the DIRECT programme is to bring each child to the targeted level of literacy and numeracy without differentiating and therefore, making an undeterred progress towards universalization of primary education through L2R classes, community libraries and balwadis.

In-School  

Improvement in the quality of learning levels of children at different stages of schooling and reducing government school dropouts within elementary education structures is the aim of the programme that is currently planned to be implemented in 16 mandals of Hyderabad . State SSA in this initiative is helping Pratham by providing its funding support for TLM, Mandal coordinators salaries, training costs etc. A formal MOU is also in the process of being signed with SSA and Pratham AP to take the programme forward within the triple partnership of Pratham, government and community.   
 
English Program  

English Learning program suits the need of the non-English knowing population in whole of Andhra Pradesh, irrespective of the age and educational background. Still it is more acceptable in the Govt. schools where the English as a subject is introduced from last 3 years and our government had a bigger plan to convert high schools into English medium to meet the demand and to bring the state children at par with their counterparts in other parts of India . This  program,  designed to give  basic conversation and reading skills in english to the children of non-English media is based on the two major objectives of listen and speak along with read and pronounce.  

HI Project

Emanating with the question "how big is your world?" children, students and teachers from primary schools in Netherlands have been linked to their peers in India . With Support from OXFAM NOVIB, Pratham is running a virtual exchange programme called Holland-India (HI) digital newspaper project. This project has its own website called www.hi-newspaperproject.moon fruit.com .The work done by children of both the countries is uploaded periodically on this website. Thus, children from selected Pratham Libraries nationally interact with their counterparts in Netherlands on pre-decided themes like 'myself', 'my country', 'my story'. Children collect information from their surrounding to share with their peers. This virtual newspaper project has been extended further involving children from an organization in Pakistan called ITA.  

Bharti Libraries

In Hyderabad total four BHARTI libraries are being run by Pratham. Among the four libraries, two are being run in communities and the other two are being run in schools. Comprehensive training was conducted for all the four librarians in the area of management of these libraries. Home visits are conducted by the librarian in the communities to encourage the parents to send their children to the libraries along with conducting parent teacher meetings to ensure regular attendance of students in the libraries.  
 
ECCE  

The program Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) was inaugurated on 2nd October 2007. The programme was to be implemented in partnership with Andhra Mahila Sabha where the State Resource Center was to support the Pratham initiative through preparation of questions papers, correction of answer sheets of enrolled students and also in terms of providing guest lectures in class. Two batches for ECCE were conducted in Hyderabad . A function was organized on 19/6/2008 for certificate distribution of the passed outs. The Chief Guest for the function was Prof. Mayuri, Child Development Department of Home Science College in Hyderabad . Mrs Laxmi from Andhra Mahila Sabha also graced the occasion along with Pratham AP's State Head Mrs Sunita Burra.  

Summer Camp in Hyderabad

The Summer Camp in Hyderabad was implemented in 8 mandals of the city. Out of 236 schools in these mandals, the Summer Camp programme was implemented in 189 schools. 171 centers for Summer Camp programme were run in schools and 9 such centers were run in the community. The rigorous and continuous monitoring was done by the Pratham School monitors, summer camp coordinators and the School authorities also. During Pratham's officials visits it was found that the children were participating in the camp activities with a lot of enthusiasm and bringing more children from their communities to take part in the camp.  

• Pratham only focuses on Govt schools but community profiles show that dash  %            of children go to private schools, thus making Pratham programmes inadequate in catering to the needs of numerous children who are going to private schools in AP.
• Medium of instruction for Pratham's programnme units like L2R, R2L, libraries, balwadis etc is regional languages of Telugu and Urdu whereas the private school boom and state SSA are running a drive towards making English the central medium of instruction in schools, therefore making it significant for Pratham to develop material and initiate programme components in English as well.
• Duplication of work with other NGOs like Naandi Foundation in urban areas of Hyderabad makes impact assessment of Pratham's programme difficult. It also leads to less number of children being attracted towards Pratham programmes in urban communities.
• The irregular support from state SSA for Pratham AP's initiatives makes it difficult for Pratham to have long term planning for programmes that can be supported by the government in the state.
• High rates of attrition due to low remuneration for community volunteers is yet another challenge faced by monitoring coordinators in all programme components of Pratham AP.