A) Experiments on the ground

• Learning Guarantee Program: This program began with the objective of identifying schools that met the enrolment, attendance and learning outcome criteria as defined by the program. With experience, it moved to a hypothesis that reforms in examinations would give the right signal to teacher to move from rote learning to developing understanding and application of competencies among children. Currently, LGP is being implemented across 3 states, after running its course of 3 years in Karnataka. The Karnataka government has adopted this model for the entire state and set up the Karnataka School Quality Assessment Organization (KSQAO) for the purpose. In the other states where LGP has been on for some time, the State Governments have replaced their traditional examinations with that of the competency based examination designed under the Learning Guarantee Program.

• Developing a comprehensive syllabus for Teacher Preparation and Support: A couple of years back, the National Curriculum Framework 2005 was taken forward to design a curriculum framework for teacher education called the - National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education 2006. This framework, however, needs to be adapted to prepare a comprehensive syllabus for teacher training institutions and on-going academic support for teacher to fully utilize it. A group within the Foundation is engaged in this task of developing a comprehensive syllabus from the NCFTE 2006 for pre-service and in-service teachers. This group will also trial this syllabus in partnership with state governments.

iii) Education Management

We are today working closely with Karnataka government to understand and professionalize the education management system of the state to develop an environment for teachers and education administrators that is motivating and accountable for learning outcomes. Currently, we are working in the following areas:

• Helping Government of Karnataka to re-organize the education system based on the organisation study by PriceWaterhouse Coopers of the Karnataka education system
• Understanding the role and effectiveness of community in education – a pilot has been rolled out in 4 clusters across 6 regions of the state.
• Developing a culture of using facts, data, Information Technology and analysis to make decisions within the Government. More than 2000 education functionaries haven been trained with more than 15,000 person days of training, possibly largest such effort in the Government.
• Contributing to the development of education administrator – over the next 18 months, 53,000 education functionaries, up to head teacher level, will be taken through an intensive management and leadership capacity development effort.

• Computer Aided Learning: The program was launched with the aim of making use of availbale computers in many schools to improve learning in children. Many government schools that had computers, however, were not using them as there was very little educational content available in local languages. We began developing education content that was child centric and based on the difficult to teach topics in the curriculum. The education software that we have developed over the last few years has been accepted by several states who had already invested in hardware. Currently, we have 119 titles in 18 languages, including 3 tribal languages, that are being provided to more than 16,000 schools across 13 states - reaching out to about 2.5 million children.
• Technology for Education: This is an effort that to explore, test and experiment with new technology for use by the education system in India. The idea is to explore existing and new technology that will enable and enhance learning, teacher development and education management systems.
  • Education Management Information System (EMIS): We are piloting with the Karnataka Education Department a custom designed Education Management Information System (EMIS) for the whole state that will help to collect and analyse education data for decision making.

Other interventions

• Workbook for Std.1-8: The Government of Rajasthan recently invited us to develop workbooks in the core subjects to supplement the text books which are already in place. This project was undertaken in partnership with Digantar and Vidya Bhawan, two non-governmental organizations in Rajasthan with many years of experience in school education. This project is to support the teachers to improve the teaching learning process in schools across Rajasthan.
• Migrant Labour Children’s Education: Bangalore – to develop and understand what it takes to meet the education requirements of deprived children of migrant labour – a group that is multi grade, multi-level, multi cultural, multi-lingual etc. - in a relatively short period of time.

B) Systemic Change Interventions

• Assessment reform led change: The Learning Guarantee Program has given us the entry point to work closely with state governments through assessment reforms. Using the assessment results, we plan to actively work with the system towards educational change.
• Child Friendly School, Shorapur: The project aims at a systemic and comprehensive change at the block level by working closely with each individual school and it's community to take ownership of its own development. Over the last few years, each school in the Shorapur block in Gulbarga, Karnataka has developed an individual 'School Improvement Plan'. Today, more than 50% of the schools in Shorapur project are on target to achieving the agreed quality improvement norms.

C) Advocacy

The Advocacy team at the Foundation aims to develop understanding of key issues that impact elementary education in India. This understanding is to help us work with our partners to advocate on key issues for educational change. Currently the areas that we are focusing on are:

• Examination led classroom reforms
• Teacher Education reform
• Use of technology for education
• Teacher pupil ratio
• Financing of elementary education

D) Partnerships

• America India Foundation
• Digantar – Rajasthan
• Gram Mangal - Maharashtra
• IIT Powai – Mumbai
• National University of Singapore – Singapore
• Quest alliance – USAID, Pratham, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratory and others
• Singapore International Foundation – Singapore
• Vidya Bhawan - Rajasthan

E) Summary of current work:

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