Avehi-Abacus Project

Report

May to December 2014

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Index

Details Page

About Avehi Abacus Project 3-5

Programmes of Avehi Abacus Project 5

Sangati programme 6-17

- The Objectives of Sangati are

- Field Outreach of Sangati Programme

- Activities Planned and Conducted for Sangati programme 2014-2015

- Children's Activities sheets

- Written feedback from Children's of the Sangati programme

- Written feedback from teachers of the Sangati programme

Manthan Programme 18-22

- Objectives of Manthan:

- Outreach:Manthan Programme

- Activities Planned and Conducted for Manthan Programme 2014-2015

- Written feedback from Ex. students of the Manthan programme

Advocacy efforts 23

Mainstreaming/ Integration of work by AAP 24

National and State Education Policy Bodies

Other programmes/Initiatives 24

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About Avehi Abacus ProjectAvehi means ‘to know’. The Avehi Public Charitable (Educational) Trust APC(E)T founded in 1981 is a media resource centre supporting schools, community organizations, women’s and environmental groups by providing media resources to enrich their work for widening horizons, for raising the level of education and awareness, promoting values of equality, justice, gender parity, secularism, environmental sustainability.

Avehi initiated the Avehi Abacus Project in 1990. The Avehi Abacus Project (AAP) believes in improving and strengthening the public education system to reach out to the marginalized sections of society and to impact mainstream policy on education.

The work of Avehi Abacus Project is based on an understanding that education does not function in a vacuum. It exists for a purpose – a purpose that is determined by society. What is this purpose? And how can that purpose be best achieved? What is the role of the school syllabus, the teaching-learning processes and the teacher in this process? These are important questions for any society – and even more so for a society like ours which is so diverse and complex, which is among the world’s fastest-growing economies and yet unable to meet the challenge of fulfilling even the most fundamental needs of a majority of its people.

The following set of Goals have guided the work of the Avehi Abacus Project:

To influence the quality of teaching-learning in schools.

To build awareness in children, teachers and planners regarding issues relating to social justice

and environmental sustainabilty.

To equip children with the skills and values that will help them contribute positively to society

and achieve their own potential.

To empower teachers to become active participants in the educational process.

To build public opinion and influence policy towards redefinition of the quality aspects of

education.

To actively participate towards influencing policies to institutionalize meaningful and creative

teaching-learning curricula within schools.

To influence policy towards formulation, acceptance and implementation of equal quality free

education to all children from 0 to 18 years.

To foster values that promote harmony and celebrate diversity.

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Sangati programme:

The project has developed a three-year enrichment curriculum package – Sangati (meaning- harmony/togetherness) comprising of a series of 6 teaching-learning kits with interlinked themes for the Vth to VIIth std classes. The Sangati curriculum is thought-provoking and interactive attempting to make school education more relevant and vibrant

It has been used in all (905) MCGM schools and has reached more than10,000 teachers and 2 and half lakh children since last thirteen years. It is also used in a few well-known private schools that engage in innovation across the country.

The project now envisages further strengthening and sustaining these efforts by working closely with Supervisory Officials of Mumbai Municipal Corporation for smooth integration, better monitoring and sustained use of Sangati programme. Annexure : 4 Brochure of Sangati programme

Manthan- Pre-service Teacher Education Module:

In addition to the Sangati programme, Avehi-Abacus Project has developed a foundation course for trainee teachers studying the Diploma course in Teacher Education (DTEd), comprising 50 learning sessions spread over two years.

This course was tested in two Government recognized DTEd colleges with 200 students in Mumbai during the period 1998 to 2000. The overall response to the course – from the trainees as well as from the two colleges where the curriculum was tested was highly encouraging.

On the basis of feedback received from trainees and trainers the process of reviewing and modifying the course was initiated from 2007. This revised course is entitled 'Manthan' (meaning - Churning). This course is in consonance with the NCF 2010 of the National Centre for Teacher Education (NCTE).

The project has been granted permission by the Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training for implementing the programme in Panvel District Institute of Educational Training (DIET) and 10 other affiliated colleges.

Saath Saath Living together in harmony: Responding to the increasing awareness about gender parity and ironically growing violence

against the female sex, the Avehi Abacus project has recently developed a kit on Gender titled Saath Saath -Living together in harmony.

The Archdiocesan Board Of Education (ABE) has taken the responsibility to support the dissemination and use of the kits. As part of this process 4 workshops have also been conducted for 145 teachers of 98 ABE schools during August- September 2013.

The kit has also received positive response in the mainstream media.

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Policy Advocacy and Mainstreaming:

The organisation has been actively involved in working for Right to equal quality education for all since the last ten years and building awareness to bring in fundamental changes towards an equitable and public funded school System. Towards this end, the organisation has connected with other likeminded civil society groups and eminent educationist to build State and National level forums.

The path-breaking, sustained work and implementation in relation to content development has been taken serious note of by the National and State level policy making bodies. Members of Avehi Abacus Project have played a key role in shaping the syllabus and textual material developed for National and State level use. The material developed by the organization has been integrated and used as reference during this process.

Programmes of Avehi Abacus Project

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PROGRAMMES

Sangati

Manthan

Sath Sath

Networking

Sangati programme

1. Sangati (Harmony/togetherness): A thought-provoking and interactive enrichment curriculum package comprising of a series of 6 teaching-learning kits with interlinked themes drawn from sciences and social sciences is appropriate for the age group of 11 to 14 years. The Sangati curriculum attempts to make school education relevant and vibrant. Sangati is being used in all (900+) Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and has reached more than10, 000 teachers and more than 2, 50,000 children.

2 The Objectives of Sangati are:

To help in enhancing the quality of education in schools by enriching and supplementing the regular curriculum

To help enhance the academic performance of children by making learning relevant and enjoyable

To build cognitive skills of thinking, analysing and making choices, and to encourage children to consider different opinions while forming and expressing their own

To enable teachers to refresh their teaching skills to encourage multi-disciplinary teaching, and make teaching participatory and enjoyable

To provide stimulating reading materials that will help develop children's reading skills and foster values that promote harmony and celebrate diversity

To Build capacities of project staff in aspects related to changing contexts and challenges of the formal education system

Network with the District Education authorities on effective implementation of the curricular package

Network with National Centre for Educational Reasearch and Training (NCERT- the apex body for curricular and in-service teacher development), National Centre for Teacher Education (the apex body for teacher education) and State bodies like State Centre for Educational Reasrch and Training (the State level body of NCERT), the Maharashtra State Text Book Bureau- (Balbharati) and others for integration of material/approach developed by the Avehi-Abacus project in the government prescribed syllabus and teaching-learning material.

3. Field Outreach of Sangati Programme: Sangati Programme is geographically spread over entire Mumbai city and suburban areas. It reaches out to all the Municipal Corporation schools. The city of Mumbai has a total of 24 Administrative divisions called ‘Wards’. The number of schools in each ward varies from 25 to 80. Out of the total number of 1174 schools

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Sangati reaches out to ALL schools having classes from Vth to VIIth i.e. a total of 905 schools. On an average per academic year Sangati is used by 1300 teachers with 41000 children.

No of schools No of classes

Zone 2013-14 Till July 2014 Less School 2013-14 Till July 2014Difference

between Classes ( Less Classes)

I 206 201 5 308 298 10

II 335 293 42 530 476 54

III 321 321 0 548 546 2

Grant Total 862 815 47 1386 1320 66

The number of classes has reduced as the academic year has progressed of some wards of Mumbai. The reason has been lack of adequate number of children especially in Gujarathi, Marathi schools.

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4. Activities Planned and Conducted for Sangati programme 2014-2015

Material Printing

Material Distribution Kit 5

Capacity Building workshop for staff

Orientation for teachers

Implementation of Sangati kit 5 in schools

Material Printing Kit 6

Printing and distribution of Souvenir to teacher’s on the occasion of India’s Teacher’s Day

Meeting with authorities

Ongoing school monitoring visits

The details of activities undertaken during May to December 2014:

Implementation by Teachers of Sangati programme in all upper primary Municipal schools of Mumbai from July to December 2014

The project was granted permission by the Education Department to continue implementing the Sangati programme for std VI and VII for the next two academic years -June 2013 to April 2015 . During the last academic year (June 2012 to April 2013) the project had been given permission specifically for the mentioned academic year since the Education Officer was on the verge of retirement. Hence the project had requested that permission be granted for the remaining two years to ensure continuity and to enable prioritization and effective planning.

Material Printing and Distribution of Kit 5: Production (printing, assembling) of teachers and children's materials (worksheets and fact-sheets) for kit 5 has been done and replacement of damaged kits wherever necessary and 191 misplaced or damaged kits were replaced and learning material Schools. Children's material for kit 5 was distributed and damaged/misplaced kits were replaced in all upper primary Municipal schools of Mumbai. (June 2014)

. Capacity Building workshop for staff: Avehi Abacus Project conducted two days workshop dated on 31 July to 1 August for all the staffs. In all 45 representatives were participated in workshop. The AAP staff were made aware of all components of the

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Sangati kit 5 . All the necessary topics have been covered in the workshop. Simantini Dhuru and Ratna Pathak- Shaha they conducted workshop. Team got good platform to improve own skills in the workshop.

Orientation for teachers: Around 1200 teachers of std VII were oriented to Sangati kit 5-Understanding change through one to one interactions in all the upper primary Municipal schools. (July-August 2014). AAP team also provided inputs/support to the teachers during the sessions.

Implementation of Sangati kit 5 in schools: After the distribution of teaching-learning material and short orientation for teachers, the teachers began conducting sessions for kit 5- Understanding change. The sessions were conducted till the last week of December. In some schools the classes even continued in January.

Sessions for Sangati kit 5 were held in all upper primary Municipal schools for std VII (July- December 2014)

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Sessions 1 to 6 for Sangati kit 5- Understanding change were completed in 80% of the classes by end of December .

Zone wise details of Sangati kit 5- Understanding change were completed in schools

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 200

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90 86 85 85 84 83 80 78 7672

67

5853

4640

33

2217

128 8

Sangati Pro. Update till Dec. 14Kit: 5 Number of completed sessions in classes in %

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 200

20

40

60

80

100

120

100 100 99 99 99 97 95 9389 86

74 7263

5143

2822

16 14 14

90 89 88 87 86 8581 77

7367

6056

5145

3627

19 16 13 12

76 75 74 73 7167 67 65 61

57

4741

33 3025

15 137 5 2

Zone IZone IIZone III

Zonewise update till Dec. 14Number of completed sessions in classes in %

Material Printing Kit 6: Children's material for kit 6 was distributed and damaged/misplaced kits were replaced in all upper primary Municipal schools. ( November 2014)

Meeting with authorities: Regular interaction with Middle level Supervisory officials for effective implementation of Sangati programme. The Sangati programme was discussed with them and experience of implementing the programme in the last year was shared with them. They appreciated our efforts and assured the team of their support for the programme. The plan for the coming year was discussed with them. The purpose was to ensure support from the Officers for the programme.

Printing and distribution of Souvenir to teacher’s on the occasion of India’s Teacher’s Day : As per the annual feature the project distributed gratitude cards to all the Sangati teachers and Middle level Supervisory Officials on occasion of teacher's day. This is done on an annual basis to acknowledge the contribution of teachers and goes a long way in enhancing teacher's motivation.

Ongoing school monitoring visits: The project representatives visited schools to understand student and teacher's responses. These visits are crucial in ascertaining the overall response to Sangati, the regularity of conducting the sessions, effectiveness in conducting the sessions and response of the students. AAP representatives visited around 3800 times all schools till December. This process documentation serves as a rich source of understanding teaching-learning processes in classrooms, amongst teacher-students, changes in children, teachers and officials and their response to Sangati.

Manthan Programme

Manthan- Pre-service Teacher Education module

1 The Avehi Abacus Project while working with teachers during development and implementation of its Sangati programme in municipal schools felt a similar need to dialogue with teachers to look at their own roles differently. Based on this felt need, the project developed a prototype of a foundation course for trainee teachers studying for Diploma in Teacher Education (DTEd). It was tested in two Government recognized DTEd colleges with 200 students in Mumbai during the period 1998 to 2000. The overall response to the course from the trainees revealed-

Students found the issues dealt with relevant and of contemporary concern.

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The importance of linking learning with personal experiences The need to connect school knowledge with outside world. The importance of using participatory methods in teaching-learning. Change in percept of their self-image as a teacher- A reflective practitioner rather than

mere transformer of information.

On the basis of feedback received from trainees and trainers the project initiated the process of reviewing and modifying the course from 2007. This revised course is entitled 'Manthan' (Churning). The course content has been updated to include latest developments in the field of education.

2 Objectives of Manthan:

To help teacher educators and trainee teachers reflect on their own roles and critically understand the key role played by teachers in society

To encourage and motivate teacher educators and trainee teachers to seek alternatives to the existing system of hierarchical relationships and move towards a more inclusive and democratic classroom

To facilitate teachers’ self-growth and improve pedagogic skills

To critically analyses school syllabus and use it creatively and expand its potential

To draw linkages between school subjects and connect what is taught in school with the world outside

3.Outreach:Manthan Programme:

Manthan: The project was granted permission by the Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training for field testing of the module in Panvel DIET (District Institute of Educational Training) and 9 other affiliated colleges in 2014-15. The Manthan curriculum is currently being used in 10 Teacher Education colleges, 10 teacher educators and 250 trainee teachers from 6 Blocks (rural administrative divisions) highlighted in Red colour (one Government and the others run by private bodies) in Raigad district adjoins Mumbai city having a mix of semi-urban, rural and indigenous population.

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4. Activities Planned and Conducted for Manthan Programme 2014-2015

The project was granted permission by MSCERT to implement the Manthan programme in 3 colleges affiliated to the Panvel DIET (District Institute for Educational Training) in April- May 2011. Thereafter the programme began in these 4 DTEd colleges from November 2011 with a two day workshop for the Teacher Educators. The Ist year course was conducted from November 2011 to September 2012. The Ist year course has 25 sessions. A detailed feedback was sought from the trainee teachers regarding the workshop through written feedback forms. The overall feedback from students for the Ist year course reveals

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that they have immensely benefitted from the programme as it supplements their regular curriculum and also contributed in creating a holistic perspective.

Implementation of Manthan programme: Implementation of Manthan programme in all 10 colleges by teacher educators. Thereafter the Teacher Educators were conducted the sessions regularly every week.

Following sessions were completed in 10 colleges in Panvel DIET in December 2014. However due to the tight schedules of the other colleges the entire course could not be completed

Themes for Year 1: (25 classes of 1.30 hours each)

The teacher: playing multiple roles The child: special in different ways Learning: thinkers and theories History of Education in India: a story of continuity and change Education in India Today: Analysis of curriculum, textual material, transaction and

assessment practices

Themes for Year 2: (25 classes of 1.30 hours each)

An exploration of how the 'school is society' by analyzing a range of issues from; - social construction of identities such as gender, caste, adivasi rights,

communalism, and the media - diverse development paradigms which engage with questions of economic justice,

environmental sustainability, consumerism, war and peace. Invoking Critical Pedagogy in order to create and sustain new, empowered identities for

teachers inside and beyond the school. Monitoring visits: The Field Coordinator visited colleges to understand student and

teacher's responses. These visits are crucial in ascertaining the overall response to Manthan, the regularity of conducting the sessions, effectiveness in conducting the sessions and response of the students.

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Advocacy efforts

As a project aimed at strengthening the quality and content of education, the implementation of Sangati programme in municipal schools forms one of the most significant part of our intervention. However it often becomes apparent that despite best efforts and intentions there are hindrances and lacunas which are of systemic nature. For any programme aimed at improving pedagogy and quality of learning to succeed the system itself must rid itself of fundamental lacunas. The foundations of building must be strong to adorn a beautiful dome. It is due to this understanding that the project has consciously focused its attention to enhancing advocacy efforts, since last 11 years aimed at strengthening the public school system. So many activities conducted by this forum.

Mainstreaming/ Integration of work by National and State Education Policy Bodies

Over the years the project has established linkages with National and State level Institutions like the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Maharashtra Prathmik Shikhsan Parishad and Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training (MSCERT). The Environmental studies textbook cum workbook for std III to std V of NCERT not only have parts of Sangati but also reflect the Sangati pedagogy.

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The project Director has been nominated by the Ministry of Human Resources Development to be a part of the Executive Committee of National Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. She is also a part of the revision committee of the DTEd course and the Chairperson of EVS school syllabus committee formed by MSCERT.

The Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training (MSCERT) has undertaken the process of syllabus review (for std I to VIII). The project Director has worked as the Chairperson for the Resource Group on Environmental Studies. The resource group finalised the detailed syllabus for std I to V.

The Project Director is also a part of the Core-Committee responsible for the Syllabus Renewal taken up by the State Bureau of Teacher Education, MSCERT.

It is thus heartening to note that these National and State level organisations have recognised the significant contributions made by the project over the last 20 years and look towards Avehi Abacus Project for direction and inputs in strategy and resource building.

Other programmes/Initiatives Orientation workshops for kit 5 for teachers of Muktangan on 28-29 May 2014: Muktangan which is working in G/S ward has adopted 9 Municipal Schools. The Sangati programme is being implemented in these 9 schools. As the academic year began in June orientation workshops were conducted for kit 5 for the Muktangan teachers. The response to the workshop was ordinary primarily due to two reasons- the sessions had to be presented in English and the coordinators being around; the teachers did not feel comfortable to participate. Moreover most of the teachers were already oriented to the kit and hence in a sense the workshop became repetitive.

Avehi Abacus Project has submitted proposal, applications in following place: ONG PUEBLOS HERMANOS ,www.puebloshermanos.org.es

Nandita Narvekar, Pay Roll Giving Programme, United Way Mumbai.

Suchandra Bose, Corporate Social Responsibility, HDFC Bank Ltd.

Umaire Effendi, HelpYourNGO

Ms. Alaknanda Sanap, Program Associate (Education), Sir Dorabji Tata Trust

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Ms. Hemangi Joshi, Narotam Sekhsaria Foundation

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