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IN SCHOOL
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| Apart from the universal enrolment and retention, one of the key objectives of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is to 'Focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality with emphasis on education for life'. In order to take this holistic vision forward, SSA and Pratham has initiated a partnership for the qualitative improvement in education within Government schools on Public Private Partnership. |
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| Goal |
Improvement in the quality of learning levels of children at different stages of schooling and reducing Government school dropouts within elementary education structures. |
| Objectives |
In School programme has the following well defined objectives:
- Children enrolled in schools (Std 2 to Std 5) should be able to read simple paragraphs and stories fluently and comprehensibly.
- Children should be able to easily recognize numbers as expected by their standard/age and should be able to perform basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
- Writing a small paragraph independently should be possible for children.
- Enabling teachers to imbibe a learner centric approach.
- Aiding state schools in achieving 100% enrollment and retention of children.
- Building community-school linkages for wider reach of educational structures.
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Target Group
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The In School program works closely and consistently with select schools and the relevant stake holders with a view to demonstrate a sustainable and replicable model. The programme focuses on non-readers but through its processes like distribution of Teacher Learning Materials (TLM), students who are in the reader stage benefit as well.
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| Pratham's Support Providers |
State Representative
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The State Representative is the overall head of all the Pratham programs being executed in the state of Andhra Pradesh. As an incharge of the progress being made in the implementation of the In School program locally, the State Representative conducts random monitoring checks and makes formal presentations in public forums to highlight the significance of the program. The State Representative is also involved in leading a team of resource persons who are involved in customizing the material generated by Pratham nationally while keeping local factors like language, geography, history of the state of Andhra Pradesh in mind. |
| Program Coordinator |
| In School Program Coordinator in directly involved in providing training to CSMs, monitoring their activities and conducting random checks in schools to trace the progress being made by the program. The concerned Pratham resource person also remains in constant touch with government officials like Deputy Inspector of Schools, school principals, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan officials, and district education officers to ensure the smooth working of the program. |
| Community School Monitors |
| In School program functions due to the contribution made by 42 Community School Monitors. Each CSM is made responsible for 12-15 schools in a Mandal. Their job role involves meeting the school principals, Deputy I.Os and community leaders to assess the number of children requiring help in educational provisions, according to which they deploy and train volunteers in each community. CSMs are key people for mobilizing the community for effectively participating in educational structures. |
Community Volunteers
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As part of the In School program, 787 volunteers have been appointed in various communities as per the strength of the students in these communities. Within the program, the communities with higher representation of children at the schools are focused on more as each volunteer covers 2-3 communities adjoining the school. The ideal teacher and student ratio is maintained to approximately 1 volunteer for every 65 learners in the program. The volunteer is chosen from among the members of the community in which the In School programme is functioning. This unique selection of volunteers from among the community helps them in facilitating tasks even outside the classroom like escorting children to school and bringing them home safely, preparing list of absentee children and motivating children to come to school, motivating parents with whom volunteers already have a personal rapport in discouraging the practice of child labor in their family etc. Thus, the volunteer acts as a catalyst in improving the children's access to school facilities as well as the his/her learning levels through the use of child friendly TLM and teaching methods developed by Pratham
In School program volunteers are deployed in 1442 communities of Hyderabad from where children enroll in 576 schools. As the volunteer is chosen from the same community as the children, it ensures effective implementation of the program both within school and in the community. As the chosen volunteer is a familiar person for the community members, it's easier for the volunteer to carry out education mobilization tasks within the community.
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| Process of Implementation |
| Training |
The unique pedagogy of Pratham is taught to volunteers, which includes activity based learning and learner centric approach to education.
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| Children enrolled through volunteer's list |
| The volunteers prepare a list of school drop-outs who are subsequently mainstreamed through the process of enrollment in Govt. schools by volunteers. In this way, volunteers effectively help government schools in retention of children within school structures. The school enrollment data is also collected to measure the change in enrollment at the end of the program. |
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Name of the child: Kartik
School: GUPS Tolichowki
Mandal: Golconda
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Kartik says, "My parents are not making me study, they send me to work. At work whatever my employer orders me to do, I'm suppose to carry out those tasks otherwise I'm scolded. But if I study, I'm thinking I would like to be a teacher when I grow up".
Karthik's parents are daily wage earners whose monthly income is Rs. 2000. They say, "Whatever we get on daily basis in not sufficient even for a single meal in a day. We don't even know if we will get our next meal as that depends on whether we'll get work. We wish that our children get educated but we don't get our money on time, due to which we are forced to send our children to work. The condition of our family is not good. We don't even get food to eat, so how can we send our children to study. That's why we are putting our children to work so that we may get little money. Even if we want we are unable to provide our children with books. If you have anything to give us, you may as then we will be able to send our children to school.
Karthiks employer on the contrary exclaims, "If you come and ask us like this, we will not be able to tell you anything, If you are talking about educating children, we know that its good but the parents of these children borrow money from us. When they are unable to pay us back, they put their children to work with us. At least when we make these children work, we are able to get back some part of our money".
he Headmaster of Kartik's school highlights, "Nowadays only if children study, they will be able to live properly in the future. Many children keep wandering here and there but do not come to school. We are trying hard to enroll such children in school. Though in our school, we have very little staff due to which the teachers do not get the time to pursue these children and enroll them. It is due to this reason that many children continue to be outside formal schooling". |
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| Assessment of children |
All children enrolled in the programme undergo a first diagnosis test called the baseline test to measure their initial learning levels.
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| Teacher Learning Material provided |
The TLM can be considered the most effective tool that sketches the impact of the programme. The content and the distribution source for TLM is the following:
TLM |
Contents |
User |
Distribution |
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Community |
School |
Community |
School |
5 cards |
Alphabets, Gunintalu, Numbers |
Non readers in the age group of 6-14 years |
All 1 & 2 class children. |
Volunteer |
Child |
7 cards |
5 cards + simple paragraph cards |
Non readers in the age group of 6-14 years |
All nonreaders in classes 3-5 |
Volunteer |
Child |
10 cards |
Story cards |
Readers from simple paragraph level |
Readers from simple paragraph level |
Volunteer |
School |
30 cards |
EVS, GK, subject related cards |
Readers from simple paragraph level. |
Readers from simple paragraph level of 3-5 classes |
Volunteer |
School |
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| Volunteers anchoring the program |
The volunteers take to teaching after school hours and conduct 2 hours classes. The duration of 1 hour is utilized by volunteers for home visits within the community in order to mobilize them on an every day basis.
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Name of the volunteer: Anita
Community: Chandanvadi
Mandal: Nampally |
Anita is a 19 year old girl who enthusiastically explains her childhood by exclaiming, "If I study, I dreamt of being a doctor but now I have changed it to being a teacher". She is presently doing her 12 th standard in Civics, Economics and Commerce. On being asked about her passionate interest in studies, she exclaims that though both her parents are uneducated, she is encouraged by both her parents to study further because as a family unit they see education as empowerment. On the surface she seems to be a normal youngster but her keen interest in being able to read the hearts and minds of people quickly in order to help them reveals that she has been a volunteer for Pratham's In School programme for over two years now. Being happy about the training that she was provided for the role, she explains how it has helped her to impart education to children whom she absolutely adores and in the process also enabled her to motivate her community members in contributing to the education of their children. She says that, "Giving education gives me a good feeling".
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| Evaluation of the Program |
Parents Meeting in progress
A multi-edged process of evaluation is carried out in order to trace the progress of the program. As part of this process, parents and teachers' attendance is monitored; meetings with parents and community leaders are held every month by CSMs. Also Mid-line and Final tests are conducted to trace the individual progress of all students. Children are subjected to this Mid test and Final test periodically, so that the analysis of the same shall enable Pratham to measure the improvement in the learning levels of learners.
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| Review Meetings conducted with Resource Group People within Pratham |
Internal review meetings are held at a weekly basis with the CSMs and volunteers. A strategy of cross-checking is executed by CSM's in each other's schools and communities in order to holistically assess the impact
of the program.
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| Programme Review and Feedback |
| The programme review is conducted through the feedback from the SSA officials and meetings with the DIOs, MRPs and teachers at the school complex meetings. |
| Impact |
Through the In-School programme, mobilization of community is undertaken so that the community may contribute to educational structures through community-school linkages. A number of meetings for the same are conducted both in schools and community by Pratham personnel.
The impact of the In-School programme is also exhibited through the contribution of Pratham volunteers in re-enrolling dropout children into schools and hence mobilizing the mainstreaming drive. Volunteers help in enrolling children who had never been part of schooling structures through enrollment of these children into Govt schools. Through both these processes Pratham volunteers were able to directly help students in reaching and subsequently benefiting from Govt. school structures. |
| Innovations |
Mother's Contact Initiative
The Volunteer adopted per school helps in sensitizing the community with focus on the mothers/guardians of children and involve them in the child's learning process. The participation of women in education initiatives in the community greatly aids in improving literacy levels.
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Name: Nagamani
Community: Chandanvadi
Mandal: Nampaly |
Nagamani is a 25 year old mother of four children named Anuradha (13), Jyoti (11), Sunita (7) and Venkatesh (5). She exclaims that she got to know about Pratham's In School programme through the volunteer in her community. According to her understanding she says that the programme is about teaching children in both schools and community. On being asked her opinion about the value of education in her eyes, she says that though unemployment is rampant in today's times, educating her children would at the least enable them to carry out day to day tasks like reading bus names, putting their signature down on official documents and help them in filling forms. She also explains that traditional ideas of getting girls married at an early age have started losing their hold on society as even while getting girls married today, their in-laws make their decision according to the level of education of the girl. She also says that according to her educated girls are better in taking care of their homes and in bringing up their children. She says that she wants to fulfill her dream of educating her daughters because she says, "I got married that's why I'm in such circumstances, and I believe that my daughters can do something more useful". She says that TV shows her lot of colorful dreams but she's finding the implementation of those dreams a little difficult.
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| Enrolling private school dropouts |
As the attraction of Private schooling is increasing manifold in the communities, many parents initially enroll their children in Private schools that charge heavy fee and also require a lot of money to be spent on school uniforms, books etc. But subsequently, parents are unable to meet the expenses of Private schools due to which their children dropout from the Private schools. These dropout children are not accounted for in the community and may remain outside formal schooling structures if they are not re-enrolled in Govt. schools. Pratham volunteers hence take up the onus of taking up the cause of this unique section of school dropouts from Private schools and enroll them into Govt schools.
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| Model schools |
The basic objective of the programme is to create a linkage between schools and communities. One of the major activities of the volunteers is to work towards increasing the enrollment and retention rates in schools. Using innovative material and tools such as games and cards is one of the ways in which this objective is achieved. For achieving the purpose of maintaining high rates of enrollment and retention, volunteers make an extra effort to bring the children to school by helping them to cross busy roads, arranging transport etc.
The classes for the students are conducted by the volunteers at schools (in school), at the community and sometimes even in the homes (home visit) of children. These classes are conducted after the children have been grouped under various levels depending on their abilities and skills. Classes are conducted in areas of reading ability, writing and math. The levels for these classes start from zero ability status to higher ability of reading a story in reading, write a paragraph in writing and to perform the operation of division in mathematics. Once the grouping for the task of reaching optimum standards of learning is completed, resource material is provided by the volunteers in three different ways. In the first method, material is directly distributed at home of the children. Through the second method the material is distributed in schools. And as a third method, material is distributed in the community. After the material is distributed the children are assessed regularly to determine their improvement through diverse tests. These tests are designed in a manner that even parents can conduct them, irrespective of their level of education.
Through the use of such innovative methods in teaching Pratham hopes to retain more children in school. This method also aims to improve the grading of C and D grade schools, so that they may reach a higher grading of being B and A grade schools.
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Government school teachers' unstructured and informal training by volunteer
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| As Pratham volunteers work in close proximity to Government school teachers, they help them in learning about new teaching methodology like activity and learner centered teaching practices, which indirectly leads to qualitative improvement in education within formal schooling. |
Science program- upper primary schools
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| Pratham took a pilot program on Science for children of 6 th and 7 th classes in Upper primary schools. The teachers within this program were oriented on experiments during school complex meetings. This program is being implemented in sponsorship with AID India . |
English program |
| Pratham has taken a pilot program on English for the children of 2 nd to 5 th classes by providing necessary learning material and trainings to teachers during the monthly School Complex meetings. |
| Limitations |
Reluctance of Government school teachers, who claim to have trained within formal degrees like B.Ed, to partner with Pratham volunteers who are in comparison less educated within formal education structures.
Reluctance of Deputy I.O's in accepting the programme as Naandi Foundation was already working in the project area in Hyderabad . A new education model presented by Pratham played on the mindset of the teachers and principals as they were habituated to the working of Naandi Foundation. Also there was a certain amount of clash in the two programs due to distribution of target group of students and conflict in timings between these two different education support models working within the same community |
| Future Planning |
- Monthly Learning Camps and Vidya Melas to be conducted once in 6 months to raise education awareness levels in the communities.
- Effective implementation of School Community Linkage Program to be continued for a greater and wider reach of formal educational structures within the communities.
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