Education- Best Practices

TALENTED LOT: Students of Government Primary School in Bowenpally participating in the Children’s Language Improvement Programme initiated by SSA.

HYDERABAD: Shabbily dressed and footwear in tatters they reflect the typical schoolchildren enrolled in Government schools. But their self-esteem is no less than kids of corporate schools what with magazine boards and libraries in classrooms changing their very attitude towards quality learning.

It is surprising, but kids in dilapidated Government school buildings have created their own libraries in every class and designed magazine boards showcasing their innate talents. Some quality initiatives by the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) to inculcate better reading and writing habits among these economically and socially backward students are paying dividends. Till last year Kavita, a 7th class student at the Government Upper Primary School in Bowenpally was just among the millions attending such schools with no special skills. But today she designs a news board in her class every day with support from her classmates and also heads the library committee.

The library committee ensures that all students take home a book of their interest and read. The books were either donated by philanthropists or collected by the school management in their area. “There is a qualitative change in us after these concepts were introduced,” says B. Veena her classmate.

Agrees N. Upender Reddy, State Academic Monitoring Officer, SSA, “The idea is to inculcate reading and writing habits and develop leadership skills on par with good private schools. It has really caught on well with lot of students participating with genuine interest.”

The Magazine Board concept is making students to read newspapers or magazines since the collected articles are pinned on the board along with their names boosting their self-confidence. This reflected in the Ranga Reddy Nagar Primary School in Qutbullapur mandal where children of poor labourers have undergone an amazing change. “It provides an opportunity to bring out our talents,” says Balu, a 5th class student. Children are also asked to write a page everyday on their feelings to enhance writing skills. A post box is also kept in every school and students can drop their letters expressing their opinion about teaching or other problems in school. “The initiatives have brought positive changes,” feels V. Madusudhan, Community Mobilisation Officer, SSA.

Source : The Hindu Daily newspaper dated 9th August 2007

The Girl Child Programme, Ranga Reddy District, Andhra Pradesh, India

The MV Foundation in India has developed a unique approach to girl child labour: mobilising communities and governments around the principle of the immorality of bonded and child labour. The Girl Child Programme has produced several innovative good practices in reaching girls trapped in domestic or bonded labour and returning them to school.

It has challenged traditional thinking and social norms in the communities. By educating critical stakeholders on the right of girls to education, it explored relevant ways of confronting access and retention issues. It strengthened the capacity of the community to better understand and respond in more girl-friendly ways to the issue of getting girls out of work and into school.

Preliminary strategies included community activism to demystify the issue of girl child labour, placing it in the open as a public, and not private, issue. This is typically debated in community meetings. Moreover, School Education Committees have addressed the upgrading of schools to accommodate girls’ special needs for sanitation and security. Locally trained girl child activists, who themselves have had first-hand experience in the struggle to get an education, better identify with problems faced by girls. They conducted intensive house-to-house campaigns to mobilise, initially, 11 girls and their parents to send these girls to school and stop work.

Trained in using non-confrontational tactics, they persisted in promoting education for girl children until parental opposition weakened. Once parents complied, they facilitated the reentry of younger girls into school and older girls into residential camps. In so doing, they provided parents with practical support in the transition period. They monitored drop-outs and identified further hard-to-reach girl child labourers. Activities helped to motivate and unite girl activists, through sharing experiences and providing peer support to one another. These girls became positive role models to parents and to the community. They even addressed child marriages, an important issue in the village, which tends to keep girls from continuing in school. Girl activists were trained to use every public occasion to increase awareness of gender issues and advocate for girls’ rights. Infrastructure was deliberately kept to a minimum and rooted in the community through a series of committees (Girl Child Rights Protection, Mothers, School Girl, and Girl Youth Committees) – all dedicated to mobilizing community support against girls’ labour. Dramas and street plays raised public awareness and understanding. The impact has been seen in both the prevention and withdrawal of girls from bonded labour, increased enrolment in residential camps and schools, and the postponement or cancellation of many child marriages through negotiation with parents. The MV Foundation has been able to project this model for the abolition of child labour at the national, and even international, level and has been a strong example for others to follow.

(Source: Out of Work and Into School, UNESCO )

The 2001 population census placed Andhra Pradesh’s population at 75.7 million with the literacy rate of 60.5%. Out of the total population, almost 5 million is tribal with a literacy rate as low as 17%. These tribes / adviasis are economically backward, engaged primarily in cultivation, forest product gathering and casual labour. The state government of Andhra Pradesh has initiated many programs to improve literacy and alleviate the economic hardships of the tribal population. One such effort is establishing Gurukulams - residential schools that provide free education; boarding and lodging facilities for economically disadvantaged children. The Education Department, Social Welfare Department and Tribal Welfare Department of the state government manage these Gurukulams.

Hole-in-the-Wall Education Ltd. is partnering with the Tribal Welfare Department of Andhra Pradesh to set up four learning stations in four districts of the state. The towns in which the Learning Stations are being set up are Parvathipuram, Srisailam, Bhadrachalam and Nagarjunasagar. Out of these four locations, Parvathipuram, Srisailam and Bhadrachalam have Schools of Excellence. Established in August 2005, these Schools of Excellence provide schooling to the brightest among the tribal children. The medium of instruction is English in these schools, which are also co-educational from classes 8th to 10th.
The school in Nagarjunasagar is Andhra Pradesh Tribal Welfare Residential School (Primitive Tribe Group - boys). Established in 1986, the school has a total strength of 458 students and 23 teachers. The school has classes from 3rd till 10th standard. The medium of instruction is Telugu, though English is also taught. This school has a computer lab with fifteen computers. The school is for children belonging to Primitive Tribe Groups, majority of whom are first generation learners.
Source: http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/News10.html

Anil Gulati

BHOPAL, Madhya Pradesh, 12 January 2010 – Shivraj Singh (10) and his seven-year -old brother Akal Singh live with their farmer parents in Sileptibarwal village, 16 kilometres from the nearest town, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

They study in the same village primary school – Shivraj in class five and Akal in class two.

But while Shivraj carries a heavy bag of books on his back, Akal walks into his classroom every morning carrying nothing. Not even a book of alphabets.

“When I was in class II, we had to take books to school and study from them. We had text books for Hindi, English and Mathematics plus the exercise books for writing and practice lessons on every subject.” recalls Shivraj.

“But Akal has no books. And yet, knows all his lessons. He can read, write and do sums which I could only learn in class four. He doesn’t have to learn-by-heart and then remember the lessons. School is fun and games for him.”

“My brother just sits with a group of classmates and studies from pictures printed on colourful cards,” he quips.

Child-centric education

Like every student in his classroom, Akal every day enters the classroom and heads straight for the students attendance record chart pasted on the wall. His fingers run down the list till he finds his name and then without any help locates the dates marking his own attendance. Thereafter he heads for another chart where he works out progress in English lessons.

Akal is one of the thousands of children in Madhya Pradesh who has been introduced to the concept of Activity Based Learning (ABL), an initiative of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan supported by UNICEF.

The initiative launched in 4000 primary schools for classes one and two across 50 districts in the state allows children to study according to their own pace in a child-friendly teaching and learning environment.

The curriculum is divided into about 20 milestones in each of the subject areas – Languages, Environmental Studies, Mathematics and English. Each milestone represents a collection of activities which develops learning competencies that a child should acquire.

This includes identifying the pictures of birds and animals, learning the alphabets, reading Hindi and English texts, counting the numbers as well as drawing and solving mathematical problems.

On a common chart, the milestones are arranged in the form of a ladder and the child knows exactly which milestone he completed in the last lesson. This is a child-friendly way to evaluate and reinforce learning.

“In the conventional method, teaching was always teacher centric. Learning depended solely on the pace of the teacher. If the student remained absent for two days, s/he missed lessons which were never taught again,” explains P S Umasree Education and Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF-Madhya Pradesh.

“In the ABL system, the child learns at his own pace. If a student has missed two days, s/he can come back and start from where they had left. Peers can work on a different milestone according to their abilities. The teacher is only a facilitator,” adds Umasree.

Peer learning

From the milestone chart, Akal works out that he has crossed the 11th milestone. He heads for the trays that contain the cards for learning and selects learning material for the next milestone which contains simple words of the English language.

He sits in the corner of the classroom and is soon joined by peers who are at the same milestone. They put their heads together and read word by word. Where they find the lesson to be difficult, the teacher steps in to help.

This method helps children learn from each other and break down social barriers which may exist in the classrooms when the children are placed in rows with little peer interaction.

“These young children are learning the practical way. They sit with peers and figure out that 4+5 = 9. They read words taking one alphabet at a time,” explains Kailash Taylor, teacher at the ABL primary school in Morcha Khedi in the adjoining village.

“Previously, we told them what the word was and they learnt it by-heart and recalled the same when asked. Most of the time, the student taught in the conventional method forgot his previous lesson. These children don’t because they work on each lesson and solve them practically. The results are extremely encouraging,” adds Taylor.

These kinds of innovations are key in helping India reach its commitments under the landmark Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 to ‘ensure good quality elementary education’ for all children.

Source:UNICEF