Fwd: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences for Implementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03 February 2010.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shubhangi Sharma <s.sharma@unesco.org>
Date: Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 1:36 PM
Subject: Re: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian
Experiences for Implementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03
February 2010.
To: Education Community <se-ed@solutionexchange-un.net.in>

Dear Friends,
Ms. Herzberger has raised a very important issue for us to deliberate
upon. As the Right to Education Act became a reality, the stakeholders
in education across the country have been put under larger
responsibility to ensure that act gets implemented without diluting
quality of education which is of utmost importance. Here, in response
to the 3rd and 4th question, I am reminded of the Activity Based
Learning (ABL) programme which is an innovative, interesting and
corroborated classroom transaction programme for standards one to four
that was introduced in the state schools of Tamil Nadu. Incubated
initially in approximately 260 schools of the Corporation of Chennai
from 2003 to 2006, it was extended from June 2007 to government and
government aided schools across the state under the direction of Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan, Department of Education, Government of Tamil Nadu,
India. ABL, adapted from Rishi Valley's RIVER programme and select
practices of Montessori pedagogy for multi-grade and multi-level
classrooms. It has been extended to 37500 government and government
aided schools in the state.
A study of the programme was conducted between June 2007 to April 2008
which was the officially commissioned Baseline and year-end survey
done by School Scape in collaboration with SSA Tamil Nadu. Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan. With able leadership, support from the education
department, from the teacher to the secretary, and the ministry, this
intervention has become an example of how a quality programme could be
introduced into the government system, within the existing framework.
Many states have learnt and applied the method of up-scaling and the
pedagogical approach to enable the country to move towards providing
primary school children, the classroom environment that would enable
meaningful learning to take place, while improving achievement levels
simultaneously.
The evaluation was conducted taking the following aspects in account
at the time of base line as well as during the process of year end
survey
Teachers, Observers and Children
Physical Environment
Teaching- Learning Materials
Class Management
Child Participation
Teacher-Child Relationship
Assessment
Planning and Monitoring
On every aspect evaluators noticed worthy improvement.  As the ABL
initiative has spread across the country and some of the state teams
have been trained by the resource faculty from Tamil Nadu, some of the
key findings of this important programme evaluation are worth noticing
for the sake of replication. One of the important finding of the study
was that the average achievement of children increased significantly
in all subjects and Gaps in achievement within gender, location and
social groups was narrowed down which was an encouraging sign. Another
important finding included more children shifting from low achievement
range to very high and excellent achievement range classes and number
of excellent achievers increased by 20% to 40% in all three subjects
and both classes. Also, the dispersion in children's achievement was
reduced:
The processes adopted under ABL are widely studied and talked about.
The role of teachers' and students' both was well conceived, planned
and worked upon which is the need of the hour. The promise of this
initiative is its adaptation potential in any setting, context and
learning situation. The implementation of RTE would require similar
methods to engage children and teachers; in the process of dialogue,
activity and interaction.
In response to Ms. Radhika's first two questions, I would say the following:
How can the government be supported to improve the motivation and
skills of existing teachers in government schools?
Teachers, more than anything, require motivation and an environment
conducive to work and interact with children. The pleasant surrounding
jointly made and used TLM to ensure interactivity and group learning
in the well planned and managed classroom environment is the key. It
not only saves time but also ensure a highly charged learning
situation. The principles of ABL method are based on the premise that
children learn better when engaged in the process of learning rather
than remaining at a level of mute spectator, which is to be kept in
mind. They can support teachers and work with them to create materials
which are helpful in accelerating their learning process. The
trainings of teacher should also revolve around creation of a lot of
such material which support the learning of both teachers' as well as
students'. For that purpose, government need to open up, learn from
the places where such methodologies are being practiced and involve
those actors in the process of training of teachers' who could inspire
and work with teachers'. Probably having such resources in government
schools for a certain period of time can yield better results.
Moreover, are there effective ways of bringing into the pool of
teachers who are trained and motivated a large number of youths with
graduate degrees (sometimes even 'teacher qualifications'), who are
currently unemployed?
There are of-course ways to make sure that youth get involved in the
process of education as a support to teachers'. In a number of places
this is being tried and tested including Rishi Valley itself. In
Doosra Dashak, the programme I was associated with a few years ago, we
trained and worked with young people to enable and inspire them to
handhold teachers' in regular course of their work and also take up
the responsibility to replace teacher at the time of crisis. Teachers'
found this arrangement quite enabling and encouraging and also
provided children the opportunity to interact and work with young
minds who could understand and engage them better. Youth can also
serve as counselors for teachers' and students' at times and bring in
an element of creativity into the classroom. What is needed is to
offer an environment where youth feel inclined to participate in the
process of education of children and share their experiences, skills
with them. A lot of young people in rural as well as urban areas
possess qualities which can rejuvenate the school environment, prayer
assemblies, bal sabhas and play ground which remain largely under or
un utilized in our schools.
Overall, I also agree that the primary responsibility to deliver
education with quality is the responsibility of the state but state
can't deliver it alone. There are obvious advantages in involving
civil society, reputed people oriented educational institutes and
other players who have something unique to offer specially in terms of
ensuring quality and inculcating creative spirit amongst teachers as
well as students.
Thanks
Shubhangi Sharma
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
New Delhi
________________________________
From: Radhika Herzberger [mailto:radhika@rishivalley.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 4:02 PM
To: 'Education Community'
Subject: [se-ed] DISCUSSION: Replicating Innovative Indian Experiences
forImplementation of Right to Education. Reply by 03 February 2010.
Moderator's Note: Dear Members, we are initiating discussion on
learning from the innovative initiatives in order to implement Right
to Education Act, the historical legal commitment by Government of
India to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of
the Country. As a community of practitioners interested in sharing,
linking and learning, we all are aware of the importance of knowledge
in helping us improve our interventions. India has a range of very
innovative – creative experiments with a huge potential to learn from
and replicate. This discussion would help us in sharing ways and
methods to hold hands of the government in shouldering the
responsibility to make available quality education to all children.
We are happy to announce that Dr. Radhika Herzberger, a well known
name amongst the people working in the field of education in India and
across the borders, has agreed to Guest Moderate this discussion. Dr.
Radhika Herzberger teaches history and presently serves as Director of
Rishi Valley Education Centre, a pioneering educational initiative in
the Country. As an educational thinker, philosopher and practitioner
she has in her credit a number of well acclaimed books written on
various aspects of education. Her out of the box thinking and
reflection on the challenges in education and the pragmatic approach
to shape those ideas in the form of action has been widely received,
studied and used by interventions all over.
We look forward to a stimulating discussion on the issue.
Shubhangi
________________________________
Dear Friends,
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009
received the assent of the President of India in August 2009.  The
main provisions of the Act can be found at; web link
http://education.nic.in/Elementary/free%20and%20compulsory.pdf  (Size
1.48 MB)
The debates on the Right to Education, especially in Solution
Exchange, has been on
"Innovative approaches to universalizing basic education"
(http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/Download-document/824-Innovative-Approaches-to-Universalizing-Basic-Education.html
)
"Legislation for the Right to Education"
(http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/Download-document/571-Legislation-for-the-Right-to-Education.html)
"Advocacy Material on Children's Right to Free and Compulsory
Education" (http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/en/Download-document/1157-Advocacy-Material-on-Children-s-Right-to-Free-and-Compulsory-Education.html)
"Right to Education Bill"
(http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/education/cr-public/cr-se-ed-08050901-public.pdf
) and
"Role of Local Governance System in implementation of Right to
Education Act" (http://www.solutionexchange-un.net.in/education/cr/cr-se-ed-decn-31080901.pdf)
The Consolidated Replies with respect to each of the discussion list
some innovations in education, and discuss critical issues pertaining
to the Right to Education (RTE)
We at the Rishi Valley School believe that education is the one most
critical aspect of human development that impacts all social and
economic development in a country and across the world.  Now that the
right to education has been enacted, and the government is fully
committed to finding the solution to reaching large numbers, we feel
it is important to engage in a serious discourse on the quality of
education that we provide to children, especially at the primary
level.
We would therefore request inputs from the members of the education
community on the following key aspects of quality of education:
How can the government be supported to improve the motivation and
skills of existing teachers in government schools?
Moreover, are there effective ways of bringing into the pool of
teachers who are trained and motivated a large number of youths with
graduate degrees (sometimes even 'teacher qualifications'), who are
currently unemployed?
The Rishi Valley School's Rural Education Centre works with a
methodology, which has been replicated and scaled up in both rural and
urban locales within India, and has been nationally and
internationally acclaimed (URL). There are many such methodologies
worth replicating. Please share the teaching methodologies you have
used and found useful in enabling high quality learning  teaching and
monitoring systems, and which can be scaled up by government schools.
Our belief is that school education must continue to be the
responsibility of the state and the state must invest in improving its
own capacity to deliver.  We would invite comments from members on how
official resources are best directed in the implementation of the RTE
Act:
·   In government schools
·   Through NGOs and educational foundations
·   Through Public-Private Partnership (PPPS) with for-profit
educational organization
Such a discussion will help reputed educational organizations to
provide pro-active support to the government in implementation of
RTEA, and help direct official resources towards high quality
education, that is innovative and suited to local needs. Post
discussion, it is also proposed to bring together a group of reputed
educational institutions within the country to share the lessons from
these approaches, and brainstorm to scale these up in different parts
of the country as appropriate?  The new approaches can be incubated
with NGOs working in partnership with government schools, and
government resources can be allocated to these.
Regards
Radhika Herzberger and A. Kumaraswamy
Rishi Valley School
Madanapalle, Chittoor District
Andhra Pradesh
(www.rishivalley.org)

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