Design, Approach and Implementation: :
1. Curriculum:
Children between ages 3 and 14 years attend Seva Kutirs. Since the aim of the project is to enhance the learning outcomes of children and make them grade ready, a baseline test is conducted to understand their present learning levels. On this basis, they are categorized into what we call Pre-Primary, Primary and Upper Primary groups which correspond to students generally between ages 3-6, 6-10 and 10-14 years respectively. Once these three groups are formed, year-long curriculum and syllabus is designed for each group, considering their present learning levels, and their textbooks. This mainly focuses on languages and Mathematics and also includes subjects such as social sciences and sciences.
2. Curriculum:Regular Trainings and Handholding of the Teachers:
As our teachers are from the same or nearby villages, and have gone through the same educational backgrounds, their capacities need to be developed. We have appointed Education Coordinators, who are experts in education. They regularly train the teachers as well as handhold them on a regular basis. The cluster coordinators visit the Kutirs daily and handhold teachers there. Apart from this, several online and offline trainings are also provided by experts from partner organizations.
3. Educational Assessment:
We try to plan internal educational assessments at a regular interval of 6-8 months at most of our Seva Kutirs. As this happened to be a mass assessment, it is done on simple Pratham’s ASER Tool which tests basic language and arithmetic skills. The cluster coordinators along with the help of Kutir teachers do this assessment. The data is captured as discussed below:
a. First Level:
Baseline and Endline Assessment at Kutir by teachers/cluster coordinators
b. Second Level:
Compilation and analysis of data for a particular cluster by Cluster Coordinator
c. Third Level:
Compilation and analysis of data from all the clusters at district level by District & Education Coordinators
4. Educating children and their families on basic hygiene practices:
We ensure that the basic hygiene practices such as washing hands, taking a bath daily, brushing teeth, maintaining cleanliness in and around their houses etc are learnt by children in Seva Kutirs. Through regular community meetings, we try to ensure that these hygiene practices are also followed by students in their homes and their parents also follow these practices.
5. Games and other Co-Curricular Activities:
Children at Seva Kutirs have various opportunities for their all-round development. Sports, Value Education, and Civic Virtues are also components of the Seva Kutirs. The children daily do prayers, yoga and exercises in the morning and get time to play in the evening. Some indoor and outdoor games/sports items like Ludo, Carrom, Badminton, Handball etc are also provided at the Seva Kutirs. Bal Sabha is organized every week at our Kutirs where children express their thoughts, creativity, and skills by drawing, singing, dancing, acting etc. Apart from these, special days like Vivekanand Jayanti, Republic Day, Children’s Day etc are also celebrated with great joy at Seva Kutirs.
Partner Organizations who Contributed to These Achievements:
Nucleus Software Foundation (NSF)
a. Regular Training:
Nucleus Software Foundation (www.nucleussoftware.com) is helping Parivaar by providing regular training by subject experts to Kutir teachers, cluster coordinators and education anchors for foundational literacy in Maths and English. Subject Experts from NSF provide physical training to the education coordinators every quarter and monthly online training to the teachers, cluster coordinators and education coordinators.
b. TLMs for Teachers and Students:
NSF has also provided workbooks and other TLMs to the teachers and students of around 700 Kutirs across 16 districts.
c.Saat Seedhi Program:
English expert from NSF team has developed and shared with us a mobile application which helps teachers and other coordinators track students’ activity and learning stages for English language at a single place. Saat Seedhi (सात-सीढ़ी) is a comprehensive foundational English program that has 7 stages of learning basic concepts of English. The app allows teachers to add students’ data to it, mark their progress and manage data easily. This platform lets the cluster and district coordinators monitor the progress of students at different levels as well as identify teachers’ performance through it.
d.Continuous Assessment:
1. Maths: The children up to grade 5 are provided with personal workbooks as per their learning levels. A worksheet is divided into different topics and these topics are further divided into sub-topics. Pre and Post Tests are planned for each topic in Maths. A child has to go through a test before starting a new topic (Pre-Test) and has to again solve a test after the topic has been taught by the teacher and practiced by the child (Post-Test).
2. English:
The children up to grade 5 are provided with personal learning books and workbooks as per their learning levels. The children practice through these books and their progress is marked on the Saat Seedhi App.
e. Kahoot Quiz:
:
A link to an online quiz is shared every Monday with the education team by NSF. There’s a new topic for the quiz every week and the link remains active for 6 days. The education team passes the link to the Kutir teachers and teachers open the link on their phone and let the students in higher classes participate in this quiz. Teachers themselves and cluster coordinators too participate in the quiz. The participants can check the leaderboard anytime in the 6 days and know their rank among all the participants. Apart from the questions in the quiz, there are also several new things to learn while answering the quiz, which everyone likes the most. Participation details of each district is also shared by the NSF team at the end of the week.
f. Monthly Teachers’ Assessment:
:
The teachers of Seva Kutirs now undergo a monthly assessment for English subject. A test preparation document is shared with the teacher at the start of the month. This document helps teachers prepare for the test. Then the test is conducted in the second week of the month, which covers topics from the preparation document. The Education Coordinators conduct the tests and upload the marks on Saat Seedhi app. The results of the tests are shared with the teachers. They are very happy with the monthly tests as they can know their shortcoming and flaws; and they are able to improve themselves based on the results.
g. National Ranking for Teachers’ Performance in NSF English Program:
:
NSF runs its programs with multiple organisations in different geographies of the country viz. schools from Noida, districts of Uttarakhand etc. Starting July 2023, NSF’s subject expert for English releases a National Ranking of the teachers across all the organisations/geographies that NSF is working with, who have been among the Top 10 performers of the month. Teachers’ scores are calculated as the average number of levels completed by their students on the Saat Seedhi App. 1 teacher from Parivaar’s Seva kutir in July, 2 teachers in August and 7 teachers in September secured their positions in Top 10 in the National Ranking. This kind of healthy competition motivates the Kutir teachers to give their best at Seva Kutirs.
2. Naraindas Morbai Budhrani Trust :
Value Education Program:
NMBT’s (www.nmbtmumbai.org) Value Education Program is designed to inculcate good citizenship values among the students along with the core academic teachings. Its Value Education module has 15 lessons to be taught to the students through 3 different stories and interesting activities. The lessons are ‘सत्य के सिवाय कुछ नहीं’, ‘अपने अहंकार को त्याग दो’, ‘प्रेम, करो और बाँटो’ etc to name a few. This module is adopted at 650+ Seva Kutirs from 15 districts and being taught to the students of Primary and Upper Primary groups on weekly basis. Trainers from NM Budhrani Trust visit at regular intervals to facilitate training session for teachers in these districts.
.3 Self Reliant India
:
Self Reliant India (www.srindia.org) shares its expertise with Parivaar to help the Seva Kutir children get admission to the prestigious government residential schools- the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas or JNVs. SRI is implementing its ‘Nanhe Kalam’ model, where Seva Kutir teachers and education coordinators of Parivaar are trained to prepare the children in class-5 th for the JNV Selection Test (JNVST). These teachers and education coordinators receive online as well as offline training based on curriculum and module created by SRI. Notes and other study materials are provided to the child and periodic tests are organized. SRI has also developed an app where the scores of regular tests are updated then the progress is analysed for better output. It is also providing guidance to Parivaar’s education coordinators for preparing Seva Kutir children for admission to some other govt residential schools such as Eklavya, Model Schools, Kanya Shiksha Parisars etc.
4. TIFO
:
We recently collaborated with Tifo which will support Parivaar’s leadership team in strengthening and streamlining the education function of Seva Kutir project. The focus will be on creating a framework to simplify the data, developing a uniform assessment mechanism and a focused approach towards internal capacity building. A well-defined process will be developed to create an internal team of Key Resource Persons (KRPs).
5. Open Links Foundation
:
Open Links Foundation (www.openlinksfoundation.org) supports Parivaar in improving the quality of education by supporting and motivating teachers. They have helped us manage apparatus- Kutir Heads, and Block Heads. They provided us with the Vinoba App which is helpful in automating routine tasks and identifying opportunities for process improvement. The teachers can share their notes, teaching methodology, classroom activities, etc in text, photo, or video posts on the app and get feedback, reactions and recognition on it. This allows teachers to focus on what truly matters: providing quality education to our students. The app offers several features for program implementation, monitoring, and evaluation that have enabled us to make data-driven decisions and ensure that our programs are achieving their desired outcomes.
6. Ek Kadam Aage Foundation
:
We recently collaborated with Ek Kadam Aage Foundation to enhance Mathematical proficiency for class 4th and 5th non-remedial students and provide a comprehensive Hindi language curriculum for pre-class to class 5 at our Seva Kutirs. The phase-wise rollout of the program will cater to the foundational and advanced
learning needs of students from pre-class to class 5th. A few copies of the books related to the program are also provided at all the targeted Seva Kutirs.
