As Read India II was about moving from the basics towards grade specific competencies, focus was on a more detailed training for Pratham staff and specifically for the village level volunteers so that they are effectively able to deliver the higher program objectives.
The district coordinators and Mandal coordinators made attempts to engage with the District Education Officers (DEO) and Mandal Education officers (MEO) to make them aware about Read India II, its goals and encourage them to support and partner with us.

As an introduction to this section, it should be mentioned that since 2006-2007, Pratham team members have been mobilizing volunteers. Some of the unpaid village volunteers for Read India 1 who were mobilized on a large scale are still continuing with Read India 2.
District coordinators and Mandal Coordinators visited every village in the districts and blocks where Read India was being implemented and spoke to the village Sarpanch and members of the Gram Panchayat who helped in identifying the volunteers. A letter to be handed over to the Sarpanch (village headman) was created. This letter clearly stated the purpose of the Read India program and how villagers can themselves bring about a difference in the learning levels of children from their own villages. Thus, young men and women were urged to come forward towards improving the learning scenario of their villages. Then Pratham and Village Sarpanch enter into a formal MOU. (Encl.1) Recommendations from village people, teachers and others in the system were also used to recruit village volunteers. Often recruitments were done with a public demonstration of activities with children to identify interested volunteers.
Typical volunteer is often a high school or college student who wanted to do something for her or his village. At times, volunteers also feel that working in such programs like this may help in further career placement or open up further opportunities.
In some districts Government departments such a as ICDS, Adult Literacy Mission and Para teachers (Vidya Volunteers) from the Primary school system were also approached and recruited.

The program is not running in schools across all districts and Mandals. If Pratham is successful is establishing a good rapport with the DEO or MEO, he will give permission to work in the schools of that district/Mandal.

Children between the ages of 6 to 14 are the targeted with a special focus on the weaker children.
At the time of volunteer mobilization, a village profile is conducted where detailed information about the village collected. Recording the number of children in the village, their age, in school, out of school number of drops out is an integral part of the data.

One of the main goals of Read India II is to enhance learning achievement orientation. For this, it is imperative that the Pratham full time team engages with different stakeholders such as parents, Panchayats, Village education committees and village leaders. Therefore all the above mentioned people on the village level know about the programs. Specifically in AP, Pratham has a strong Panchayat level partnership.

In most villages, at least 2 volunteers have been mobilized.

There is not much evidence of community engagement in the schooling process; the AMCs are not that active in the villages. Parents are sending the children to schools but they are not aware of the schooling process for eg. What is AMCS? What grants are coming to school accounts? How grants are utilized by the school committee? What is the role of the parent/ community in schooling process? etc.

Formal State or District Level Partnerships

Regular meetings with MEO’s were held by Mandal coordinators to keep them updated about the Read Indi program.
State Head and DRC faculty met the Local M.L.A and Minister of endowments and registrations MR. G.Venkata Reddy and explained programmes of Pratham.
State Head also met the Governor AP and gave presentation on Read AP activities.
A proposal and an MOU was submitted to the three district Project officers of Rajiv vidya mission for conducting the English classes in the primary schools of these three districts.

Yes, permission was given in Medak district to train the Government teachers in English as per Pratham’s CAMaL methodology.

It is an official partnership with the district government. The program is currently being conducted in 187 schools during class hours covering 15,850 children and will run for a period of 6 months up to March 2011. Training was conducted by Pratham and financially support by SSA. There is joint monitoring of the program between Pratham and the Government officials.

SSA officials (MEO & MRPs) keep communication with Pratham team on regular basis, same way Pratham team also keeps SSA officials informed how classes are running. So far there has not been any written feedback information sharing, but from few schools Pratham team has collected feedback on children performance from teachers.

Where ever there is a need for TLM and training SSA has informed Pratham, similarly if there is less participation of teachers in class room teaching Pratham shared with SSA to correct.

Pratham has been able to activate Academic Monitoring committees (AMCs-- monitoring and decision-making bodies at the local level, comprising the school HM, the Sarpanch, parents and local NGOs like Pratham) have been established in most villages.

Read India in AP is largely a village based campaign where the team has established a strong informal partnership with the village Panchayat, parents and other community members.
Approximately 40% of the classes are conducted in the school premises before or after school hours.

There is no state level partnership in AP. Pratham has been able to establish an informal partnership in some districts through training of Para teachers in the CAMaL methodology.
In Medak district Pratham has an official partnership with the district SSA to implement English through CAMaL methodology across all schools in the district. Government teachers were trained by Pratham and the cost of the training was borne by the education department.
There is a strong informal village level partnership across all districts in AP.

On the state level the SSA is already trying out new methods of teaching-learning such as ABL (Activity Based Learning) and LEP (Learning Enhancement Program). Hence it becomes challenging for Pratham to convince the government to mainstream its methods into regular school.
However, on the village level the strength of the partnership can be attributed to the advocacy efforts made by the Pratham team to popularize Read India and its methods through various activities.

Government partnerships at district and mandal level help to cover children with in school, influence teachers with new methods. Particularly with English subject teachers have shown lot of interest as methods are simple and doable. MOUs with Panchayats involve Sarpanchs more closely in village classes and make them responsible to improve learning levels of children.

SSA has launched Program on Learning Enhancement program (LEP) in the year 2009 -10 and introduced SNEHABALA CARDS (ABL) for std.1-3. Trainings have been imparted to the teachers on the same, testing of the children have been done and gradings been given to the standard appropriate levels.

Yes, officially only in Medak district, and unofficially in districts such as Vishakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram, Warangal, Ranga Reddy and Srikakulam.

No, Pratham’s model has not been replicated elsewhere.

Yes, there was an official training conducting in Medak for English and the Government teachers that were trained are now teaching English in schools as per the CAMaL methods.
In Vishakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram, Srikakulam, Warangal and Rangareddy where Para teachers were part of the Pratham training are implementing the CAMaL methodology in schools although this is done unofficially.

CAMaL has shown positive effect on learning achievement, as the learning levels have increased among children. Children started speaking without hesitation in the classes, able to express their thoughts, able to comprehend the content, able to speak simple sentences in English and able to solve the oral word problems in maths.

To sensitize the community about Primary education, District and Mandal coordinators are meeting Sarpanchs, other leaders, participating in Gram sabhas.
Conducted games and competitions on special days like World Environment Day, Independence Day, Teacher's Day to increase involvement of parents, community members and Panchyat members.
PAT (Pratham Assessment Test) was conducted with the involvement of parents to make them understand the concept of learning levels and learning outcomes.
Regular Rallies conducted at the village level with children and teachers also increased community involvement. Artisans demonstrating their skills in the village to children as one of the activities of My 20 villages also are an example of involving communities
No, there were no obstacles encountered in this area.

Report cards have been created for every Village.

Pratham staff helped in activating the SMC is several villages Pratham submitted a state level proposal on Strengthening of School Management Committees in RI blocks.

Academic Monitoring Committees conducted by Schools every month in few villages and PAT test conducted by Pratham in the villages has shown involvement of parents where they are keen to know their children learning levels. Communities started sending children to RI classes to get better learning achievements.

The Black board activity that was conducted as part of My 20 villages and PAT test demand more information on what is overall performance of children as per their grade.

Not really. The village report card gives information about the village that might help MCs and DCs to plan.

No. Local stakeholders not yet started using testing tools.

SMCs are not really strong. Once a month few parents gather and give their signatures in the registers. They do not really discuss issues on Teacher attendance, School grants, mid day meals etc.

Yes data is available on National Level. Currently the baseline test conducted in the months of Aug-Sept is available.

Firstly, A pre and post test is conducted for each child by the volunteer to determine the child’s learning level. This data is not compiled and can be found on the village level in every class.
Secondly, a pre and post test is conducted by the District and Mandal coordinators in 25 randomly selected schools or villages. This data is compiled and is available on the national level.
Lastly, the progress of children in constantly being monitored by the district and Mandal level personnel. Additionally, Regional heads and persons from the training and content team conduct visits to monitor the progress.

Child wise data (Currently pre test) is available on the village level.
Compiled pre test data of 25 selected schools/villages is available on the national level.

During RI 1 imparted L2R and R2L to cover non-readers and this year introduced CAMaL to improve higher competencies

The data collected on the National level is reliable. This is conducted by the staff that has been trained theoretically and practically to collect data.
The children who were tested during the pre test are the ones who are covered when the post test is conducted.

Currently progress of children can only be measured through visiting classes, observing the volunteer and children and checking their current learning level by comparing their learning level that was recorded by the volunteer at the start of the class.
For an overall perspective on progress we will have to wait till the post test is conducted in the end of March.

Analysis can only be done once the results of the post test are available. Based on these results, internally, changes are made in curriculum, training patterns, classroom practices etc.
Externally, if results are exceptional, they are disseminated among government officials and departments and are used as a tool for advocacy.

Yes. The data was utilised to demonstrate the importance of learning outcomes and it helped in setting the goals for Read India 2.

Yes, the state now does realize the need to refer to data on learning levels while planning.

Textbook-independent grade appropriated testing been accepted for the primary school level.

Yes, The government has shown keen interest in the assessments. All assessment results are taken seriously by the government. ASER results are also given a lot of importance by the state government at all levels.
SSA has been started awarding the grades to the class, school and mandals. Starting from the grade A-D. Assessment is done monthly and quarterly reports are sent to MEO's office.

No the EFE program has not begun in the state. AP is part of EFE’s 2nd phase.
EFE was piloted on a small scale in the Guntur DRC. Volunteers from the surrounding areas of Bapatla Mandal were part of this course.

EFE not introduced in AP yet.

There is no other course going on in AP

N/A

N/A

N/A

Children between the ages of 6 to 14 are the target population. The learning goals are:

Language: younger children should be able to read simple sentences and paragraphs. Older children should be able to read fluently their textbook lessons and speak about it.

Math- younger children should recognise numbers up to 100 and do single digit addition and subtraction. Older children should be able to recognise number up till one lakh and solve word problems.

English: young children should have a vocabulary of about 50 words and answer the “wh” questions in one word. Older children should have a vocabulary of approximately 300 words and should be able to read answer “wh” questions in full sentences.

The Pratham staff was trained in Math, Language and English as per the CAMAL methodology. In addition to the teaching curriculum, they were also given inputs in classroom management, monitoring, testing and evaluation of children.

From this year, the duration of the training was longer (approx 15 days).
Emphasis was on understanding children's competencies, what are the kind of things to observe during classroom monitoring and ways in which feedback needs to be given to the volunteer.

Training of volunteers was conducted on the cluster level by Mandal Coordinators and District coordinators.
Duration of the training was 9 days (earlier it was 3 days) which was broken up into phases.
Teachers manual, children's material were used as material.
In addition to theoretical inputs, practical demonstrations were also conducted by going into the field during the training sessions.

Through regular visits from MCs and DCs, they have a monthly plan of how many villages need to be visited.

Government partnership only in Medak. They were trained by Pratham English master trainers and the classes are being monitors by Mandal coordinators in school.

There are very basic theoretical inputs. More emphasis is laid on how the activities should be conducted.

Actually we can't measure since Pratham is not working with Government teachers during schools hours. However Vidya volunteers have improved their teaching learning methods using CAMaL methods. Children are grouped and given appropriate activities as per their levels.

In the Phase I of Read India, only basic skills of reading and Arithmetic were being tackled. With Read India II, focus is on comprehension and beyond. Children are taught using their own textbook curriculum.

For the teachers, the teacher Manual is very pictorial and not wordy so volunteers are clearer on how to conduct activities.
The English curriculum is now presented like a calendar where month wise objectives and activities are clearly defined.
For the children, learning aids such as number and letter charts, bandal tilli, currency cards are used that make activities fun and enhance learning achievement. For older children the text book is used to conduct CAMaL activities.

Focus is on children being able to expression in class without any inhibitions; manuals are less wordy andmore pictorial, children and divided as per their learning levels.

on what they are currently doing. As many volunteers themselves are students, their own studies and exams can come in the way of long term engagement.

Thus we feel that periodic helped in engaging the volunteers those who dropped in between. The traditional barriers between "school" and "home" are "bridged" by volunteers.

Classroom observation suggests that all the above things are happening.

We made sure that there are two volunteers one teaching class 1 &2 and other one 3& 4, thus helped volunteers to focus on different learning levels of children. Volunteers were able to group children and perform activities of CAMaL perfectly. Visiting the classes in the villages it is clearly evident that the children have made progress since the campaign has begun.

The extra materials that Pratham supplied and the method of CAMaL linking to regular curriculum based lessons helped readers to become fluent  in reading.
Currency which was used for perfecting children in place values and reciting every day tables helped children to do multiplications and divisions.

CAMaL is a completely activity based programs so children find it easier to understand concepts while “doing”.

All CAMaL activities and created with an objective to achieve the competencies mentioned above. Even instruction of classroom practices, grouping of the children all work towards the same goal.

The state team, comprising of the state head and regional head have moved from being solely an implementing team to becoming a resource group for advocacy on the state and regional level. Their role is to engage with the government to try and impact policies on issues such as classroom practices and emphasis on learning outcomes.
What issues have arisen with respect to management of staff, volunteers, finances, and logistics of program delivery, and how have they been dealt with?
Overall staff management:    Pratham team members report at the district and mansal levels to the appropriate DEO & MEOs about the program. For example participating in School Enrollment Drives by SSA, organizing village meetings, conducting rallies in bringing awareness among parents.
Where ever there is partnership at Mandal level, all decisions regarding training and support of school teachers or the vidya volunteers has to be done in consultation with MEOs. This often slows the process of implementation.
Formal MOUs:  There are at times delays in ensuring that these formal agreements are done in time. For example Pratham submitted proposals for implementation of English Methods in schools in Medak in the month of August 2010. But formal proceedings were received in November.
Volunteer expectation: We feel village volunteers are a key part of the Read India program. On the basis of the requirement of the program, we identify and orient village volunteers. Many volunteers, however, work with the hope that they will some benefit of their work. They often expect that this experience will help in getting jobs especially as teachers / vidya volunteers in private and government schools. On a very small scale in a few locations in the state, Pratham is experimenting with a education exchange idea - “Education for Education” where village volunteers are trained in computer skills. ( In Guntur District) 
Attrition of mandal coordinators and volunteers is a big issue in some regions especially like Telangana. In other areas some of them left the jobs as they got better employment, left for higher education etc. in such cases recruitment and training of MCs and volunteers consumed a lot of time and energy. This problem was dealt with a strong team of District coordinators and resource persons by conducting demonstrations and refresh trainings/demonstrations to the new volunteers at village level.

The program is being monitored by the District and Mandal coordinators on the field level by them conducting regular visits to every village that they are responsible for Keeping an eye on volunteer performance giving necessary input in areas where the volunteer is unable to teach effectively.
Field level observations are then share in their monthly meetings with other field members and Regional head.
Field level information is provided by regional heads to the state heads makes up for majority of the monitoring on the state level.
Program is evaluated through these inputs and the state heads personal visits to the field. Progress and effectiveness of the program is tracked against the outlined objectives for the year.

Management structure at National, State, Regional and District level was strong in terms of pedagogy, planning, Training and monitoring. This helped in achieving set targets in set timelines effectively. However there was a challenge at Mandal staff level due to frequent change. Due to this in few blocks the impact was not high.

The effective monitoring in the program depends a great deal on the Mandal coordinator’s personal capacity and on how well he/she has understood the curriculum and its objectives. Therefore there are instances where the monitoring is not up to the mark. In such cases, measures like “District coordinator’s one week campaign” and taken up (conducted in Jan 2011) where all district coordinators gather in one Mandal and conduct intense monitoring through the week.
Post this, a number of Mandal coordinators whose performance was not up to the mark were replaced
Baseline test and end line test conducted in volunteer’s class and baseline and end line conducted under MEP (in 25 schools) have been considered for evaluation frame work.

• In school (during school hours)

• In school (before or after school hours)

• In community (in a public community space)