Why govt schools should become the first choice for education in India
{Following is textual transcript of speech shared by our founder, Akanksha, at IIM B NSRCEL & MSDF social cohort incubation graduation day held on 10 May 2019}
I want to share some of my classroom experiences from govt schools in UP. One of our math teacher in Baghpat, planned to introduce fractions to her grade 3 students. She started by asking questions: when a roti has to be distributed in two, how will you do? Then in four parts? Then she divided the class into groups and asked each group to divide a box into thirteen equal parts. Each group came up with a unique answer and got to present it to their class. Children understood the concept of fractions and built the competencies of analysis, team work and presentation.
In another class, a teacher teaching a Hindi chapter on trees in grade 2, sent her children observe the trees in their school and notice the differences among trees. She then got them to write their observations. Children built competencies of observation, comparison and practiced writing skills.
In both cases, teachers executed meaningful learning because they planned keeping competencies in the centre. The content came from state textbooks and no extra resources were required.
How can this happen in every classroom of every school across India is what Tarkeybein is working towards
Our vision to make govt schools the first choice for education.
When we started 3 years ago, we were solving for the symptoms of the education crisis by focusing on content and teacher training. We were dissatisfied because we could sense we were missing the point
By spending more time within the education system, we realised that it’s structures within the system that we need to work with. Because structures change behaviours. By focusing on Individual teachers, we are missing the point. Currently our teachers feel helpless, they also blame the system like we do. Parents blame the system while the panchayat education committees hardly hold govt schools accountable for learning.
We realised we need structure to empower teachers and communities in a collective manner where they feel the ownership and have the agency to bring meaningful learning to their children.
We also learnt to value to see teachers as thinkers and tinkerers and not as technicians who will execute lesson plans. We Learnt to Work with parents not individually to take care of their children but to engage entire village panchayat structure in building a education narrative for the entire village, block and district.
We are focusing on govt schools as first choice because education is in crisis. The state is responsible for building capabilities in its citizens to give them an equal start and if govt schools offer education only to the poor, quality will always be connected to privilege, when the best is made accessible for all, then as a country we will grow by leaps and bounds.
And we can make our public education system excellent by keeping competencies as the centre of our focus for all interventions whether it be with assessments, teachers and content creation. National Achievement survey conducted by NCERT since 2001 has been already measuring competencies for children in every district.
The competency based approach that we are implementing has been tested for 20 years in 3000 schools in 8 states. RCT study shows statistically significant improvement in higher order thinking skills of grade 3 and 4 students whose schools have been part of this approach for 2 years.
So to summarise our journey started from 100 students and building reading capabilities and currently we are working with 4000 children and focusing on building learning competencies. We are currently at cluster level, will be at block level next year and will be working at district level by 2021. And we will be doing this in partnership with DIET and CRC. Our sustainability lies in the scale because as we reach more numbers our cost per student becomes less than half because instead of increasing our team, we will be building capabilities of people and structures within the system at district level. Already in the last six months, the block level education office has partnered with us to conduct training on learning outcomes for 300 teachers.
Going forward, we will be testing the development of competencies through Gooru App, developed by former CTO of google maps, we are their partners in Uttar Pradesh. We have been able to raise money through grants till now, as we have finished our three years, we will be targeting CSR funds. We seek your support.
And through partnerships and consistent focus, we will ensure that govt schools in become the first choice for education by scaling this idea through building partnerships with other organisation and govt. With your support, we will make best accessible to all!
If you resonate with our work, want to implement this model in your community, want to support this initiative, support crowdfunding campaign, or just want to drop in some encouraging words, we invite you to write to us at tarkeybein@gmail.com :)
