Education Outlook for Uttar Pradesh 2011

As per the 2001 Census, Assam has a literacy rate of 63.3%, slightly lower than the national literacy rate of 65.38%. The literacy rate in Assam can be broken down to show a male literacy rate of 71.3% and a female literacy of 54.6%.According to the ASER Report 2010, only 45% of children in Std. V can read Std. II level text and only 62% can do division problems.

Pratham in Uttar Pradesh this Year

Geographical Coverage: 3,100 villages across
Children Reached: 149,006
Volunteers Mobilized: 8,013

• Pratham is currently running the ‘Read India’ (RI) program through 28 BEPs and 3 DRCs, as well as the Urban Learning Centre (ULC) program in 5 cities. The Read India program is operated out of the BEP’s through government schools as well as community centers. Although formal written consent hasn’t been obtained by Pratham to teach in government schools, in many blocks, schools give either oral consent or written permission, allowing Pratham to teach in a school
  environment.
• The ULC program in all the 5 cities adopts a tutorial model, where children are given help where required. There are currently 87 ULC’s running in 5 cities (Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Agra and Rampur). These programs operate out of Pratham’s own centers, located in urban slums. Pratham pays teachers a nominal sum, in order to motivate their teaching as well as to give them a form of self-sustenance. The teachers are young women and men from the local communities, between the ages of 18-23.
• 272 EFE (Education for Education) centers were made operational in 27 BEPs and 3 DRCs. 3375 volunteers have been trained in digital literacy. More volunteers will be offered digital literacy courses as well as English courses in the year ahead.

Future Plans

Pratham plans to set up ‘PRATAP’ Centres (Pratham Training, Assessment and Placement Centre) in order to begin its transition to a post-secondary institution which will not only be accessible to volunteers but to all youth. These centres will be run in conjunction with the EFE program initially. At this time, a village census has been conducted, which includes details of proximity, travel times, and travel costs from villages to proposed EFE centres.

Volunteers classes will run till 25th March, when the post-test data collection process will start.