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The month of July 2004 saw the commencement of a new academic year for us in Pratham Delhi. The executive team has regrouped with renewed zeal after a frenetic summer, and is dedicatedly working towards our vision of "Every Child in School…and Learning Well." The intent of this report is to update you on all that's been happening on the programme front in the last few months, and give you a glimpse of what lies ahead.
1. Summer Camps 2004
We ran the summer camps for seven weeks (from 11 May to 26 June) in over 100 locations in East, West, and Central Delhi. An addition to the summer camps this year was the Balwadis, meant to accommodate younger siblings of the children in the 6-14 year age group. We ran a total of 1052 classes, with the break-up as follows:
| Programme |
No. of classes |
Boys |
Girls |
Total Children |
| Balwadi |
194 |
2523 |
2631 |
5154 |
| Learning to Read |
688 |
8535 |
8703 |
17238 |
| Reading to Learn |
170 |
2059 |
2225 |
4284 |
| Total |
1052 |
13117 |
13559 |
26676 |
In addition to these programmes, the Library ran as an integral component of the summer camps this year. Every Saturday was reserved for Library and other co-curricular activities, and the classrooms used to come alive with the children lapping up the books and the activities with enthusiasm. Another significant feature of the summer camps this year was the Social Audit conducted by external volunteers in around 40 locations. These social auditors - usually college students and young professionals - came to their assigned schools once a week, validated the classroom assessment and filled in useful qualitative reports. The enthusiasm shown by some of these social auditors has continued beyond summer, and many of them have promised us continued support.
The results of the assessment of Learning to Read are as follows:
Summer Camps In Delhi :
May-June 2004 |
| |
Pre Test |
Post Test |
| |
Number |
% |
Number |
% |
| Story |
278 |
2.0 |
7028 |
50.9 |
| Para |
1856 |
13.4 |
2348 |
17.0 |
| Word |
2876 |
20.8 |
2165 |
15.7 |
| Letter |
4601 |
33.3 |
1957 |
14.2 |
| Nothing |
4201 |
30.4 |
314 |
2.2 |
| Total |
13812 |
|
13812 |
|
These results are of the children who were common to the pre-test and the post-test. The number of "readers" (taken as the summation of "Story" and "Para" category children) went up by over 52% during the seven weeks - an improvement over the last year when a similar increase was around 40%.
Results of the assessment of the "Reading to Learn" classes were also very encouraging. Children were assessed for simple language skills such as comprehension, factual writing, independent writing, vocabulary and grammar in Hindi, and basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in Maths. Here is a sample of the results from the Reading to Learn assessment:
| Ability/Skill |
Pre Test |
Post Test |
| Number |
% |
Number |
% |
| Language: |
|
|
|
|
| Comprehension |
706 |
34.8 |
1649 |
81.4 |
| Vocabulary |
833 |
41.1 |
1708 |
84.3 |
| Grammar |
566 |
27.9 |
1346 |
66.4 |
| Independent Writing |
228 |
11.3 |
711 |
35.1 |
| Maths: |
|
|
|
|
| Multiplication |
727 |
15.0 |
1298 |
45.3 |
| Division |
500 |
10.3 |
1257 |
43.8 |
| "Clock" question |
1456 |
30.0 |
2259 |
78.8 |
The "Reading to Learn" classes were meant primarily for out-of-school children, to bring them to an age-appropriate level for mainstreaming as far as possible. Most of these classes prepared children for admission to Std. 2. However, we ran a small number of classes corresponding to Std. 3 level as well, which included E.V.S. (or Environmental Science, comprising elements of Science and Social Studies) and English. This proved to be a very important pilot for curriculum development for teaching children of Std. 3 level, a process that is currently in progress.
2. The Catalytic Programme
While the direct delivery of educational programmes continues to be the most significant component of our programmes, the "catalytic" mode of operation, in which Pratham acts as a training resource for external agencies including the government, is fast emerging as a very useful approach for reaching out to millions of children in a short span of time. Maharashtra and some other states had successfully launched catalytic programmes last year, and this year Delhi too has taken the catalytic route.
In April this year, we had been invited by the MCD Commissioner to train MCD teachers from one of the zones - the Shahdara South zone - in the Learning to Read technique so that these teachers could apply the same in their schools. Accordingly, as many as 395 teachers of classes 3, 4, and 5 from around 150 schools were trained in the Hasanpur village school near I.P. Extension in East Delhi between 21 June and 25 June 2004. The response of a majority of the teachers was overwhelming, and we were ourselves more than pleasantly surprised by the interest and enthusiasm of many of these teachers. More than the dissemination of the technique, our trainers managed to put across the message of the need for an attitudinal shift amongst the teachers if education levels in the schools are to be improved. We see this as a very important step in the process of impacting the school system - an objective that is inherent in Pratham's way of functioning.
The initiation of the catalytic programme also taught us many lessons in the art of interacting with the sarkaari bureaucracy. Convincing the zonal authorities, getting approvals for the training venue, ensuring participation of the maximum possible teachers - each of these was an act of moving mountains. In the end, the five-day training was an excellent example of a joint venture between the MCD and Pratham.
The training was just the first step in the catalytic process. The next and the more daunting task was to get the teachers who had been trained to actually implement the Learning to Read technique in their schools, so as to cover all the children in the school in classes 3, 4, and 5 who could not read. The month of July went in preparing for the task - printing of teaching-learning material, a series of meetings with the MCD officials to plan the implementation at the school level, getting our group of people for supporting the school authorities etc. The programme was expected to commence on August 2, but finally started on August 17, owing to a delay in the printing of the material. (Considering that the MCD had taken upon itself the task of printing, we were at one stage apprehensive whether the material would ever be printed!) At the time of writing this report, as many as 130 schools were actively involved in implementation of the Learning to Read programme through their own teachers. This phase is expected to be over by November 2004, and depending on the achievement of this programme, we have the opportunity to scale it up to cover all the twelve MCD zones in Delhi.
3. Mainstreaming
Like every year, the act of admitting out-of-school children into schools was earnestly carried out during the admission months of July and August. Summer Camp teachers who ran classes for out-of-school children were pressed into service for this purpose, and payments to them have been made on a "per-child-admitted" basis. Data for mainstreaming is being compiled at the time of writing this report, and early indicators suggest that we should exceed the last year's achievement of 60% mainstreaming by a fair margin this year.
4. Organization Restructuring
An important exercise carried out through the month of July was the restructuring of the organization as planned. The state of Delhi has been divided into five cities - each city being run by a "City Manager" and being funded by a unique donor. A city is further divided into smaller zones, and every zone comprises several bastis wherein the classes are run. A basti is being managed by the basti pramukh, and responsibility for achievement of objectives in a zone rests with the zonal head.
5. Basti Profiles
With the new academic year that began in July 2004, we have shifted to the "basti" approach of functioning. Specific targets have been defined to be achieved within a given time frame in all the bastis where we are working - a basti is a cluster of roughly 250 households with around 500 children in the 3-14 age group. As a first step in the achievement of these objectives, detailed profiles of around 250 bastis were prepared during the months of June and July 2004. Data was collected through house-to-house surveys, and we now have detailed and extensive information about the demographic and educational status in each basti where we would operate this year. This data has served to pinpoint the specific need for Pratham's intervention in each basti, thus helping us plan our programmes much better as compared to the previous years. The profile also serves as a baseline to measure the impact of Pratham's direct delivery programme in each basti over the course of a year.
6. Practice Session
In order to get ourselves going on the basti approach of functioning, we decided to set aside the month from 15 July to 15 August as a practice session for all the full-time workers in Pratham. The practice session was carried out in 16 bastis, in which the city managers and zonal heads assumed responsibility of the Basti Pramukh, and the basti pramukhs themselves became the teachers. This exercise went a long way in bringing into sharp focus the nitty-gritty of actual implementation of programmes in the basti - everyone is now more acutely aware of the difficulties, the challenges, and the possibilities of the new approach of functioning.
7. Capacity Building
Capacity building of all full-time volunteers in Pratham Delhi has been defined as one of the most important objectives for this academic year. City managers have been given the specific responsibility of ensuring that their city teams build and develop enough capacity to be able to manage each city as an autonomous entity to the extent possible. Accordingly, the process of capacity building has started with the City Managers themselves, with regular in-house workshops being organized in areas like Accounts and Finance, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Management and Administration etc. The city managers are in turn expected to pass on these skills to their zonal teams, so that each zone can subsequently function as an independent unit, capable of running and managing its own programmes.
8. Career Development Cell
Pratham Delhi has over 200 full-time people devotedly working towards the objective of Every Child in School and Learning Well. Majority of these people are in the age group of 20-25, and have their individual aspirations to study further or move on to greener pastures. With a view to inculcate a sense of confidence amongst these individuals, we have recently initiated the formation of a Career Development Cell within Pratham Delhi. The Cell is in the process of obtaining a database of the qualifications and aspirations of each of the 200 people, and will then provide regular support and guidance to the full-time staff in pursuing their own educational or career objective.
9. Current Programme Status
More than 1000 classes are operational in around 120 bastis across Delhi at the time of writing this report. These include around 300 balwadis and 700 "Learning to Read" classes, which are running both in schools and in community locations. Each basti has a library of its own, which also serves as an "office" for the basti pramukh. As many as 180 more bastis are expected to be added in the next phase of the programme that begins after Diwali in mid-November. Needless to add, this would be subject to availability of funds to commence this second phase of the programme.
In addition, we are continuing to run 48 Learning Centres under the aegis of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan in the North East District of Delhi.
The summer of 2004 has been a season of introspection for us in Pratham Delhi. While we have every reason to be proud of our progress and achievements during the year 2003-04, the scorching pace at which we have worked has forced us to rethink on some basic issues related to quality and human resources. We are convinced that the pursuit of results and targets must go hand in hand with continuous capacity enhancement of our people, and proactive steps must be initiated to ensure a sense of well being amongst all our workers, including the teachers. This is a huge challenge, given the vast scale and the complex nature of our operations. Also, recurring liquidity crises continue to impede smooth running of the programmes. In the months to come, the Executive Team of Pratham Delhi hopes to surmount these challenges and problems, and continue to passionately pursue the goal of providing quality education to every child in the state of Delhi.
Chetan Kapoor
20 September 2004
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