Innovating with the poor
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Innovating with the poor
BPF created a practical how-to manual on building assessment systems of Changemaker Skills in schools.
Designed and laid out by BPF, the toolkit makes a compelling pitch for the target audience, namely principals, to adapt these assessment systems in their schools. Three schools were identified by Ashoka who work towards their students becoming Changemakers, namely, Rajakiya Uchcha Prathamika Vidyalaya, Khinyera, a Government School in Rajasthan, who partners with URMUL Trust, to assess aspects of students' development; the TVS Academy, Hosur, a private school and the Avasara Academy, Pune, a private school for high-potential children from low-income families. The BPF team interviewed teachers, students and management from these three schools to map the process of their assessment systems. This included the creation of instruments and a methodological designs. Secondary research along with a review of assessment tools and methods was also carried out.
The Agastya International Foundation commissioned BPF to document success stories of government school children in urban Bangalore, exposed to the Agastya intervention.
The Agastya project has been beneficial on various levels – for better student learning and heightened interest in science, for helping teachers improve their teaching methods, for the school’s reputations, and for restoring the parents’ faith in education. BPF conducted around 100 interviews of children, their parents, teachers, and heads of 10 selected schools to choose 21 achievers who were excelling in one of the three traits that Agastya encourages, i.e. curiosity, awareness, and confidence. The comprehensive story bank speak volumes about how interesting science can be for school children, provided it is taught in an innovative way.
BPF was commissioned by Sir Ratan Tata Trust to assess the viability of setting up a Vocational Training Centre proposed by VTU, Karnataka.
BPF carried out the assessment which included a study of secondary data to understand skills, availability and deficits in selected districts, through discussions with various industry associations, vocational training institutes, and government departments. The analysis showed that even though a large number of youth graduate out of the various vocational training institutes, they are not necessarily employable, primarily due to a lack of industry focus on curriculum and training methods.
Axis Bank Foundation, commissioned BPF to conduct an impact assessment of the RCC programme, which showed that the RCC Programme has proved to be an excellent strategy for providing educational sustenance and enhancing the social capital of children coming from poor and marginalized sections of society.
The RCC programme supported by Axis Bank Foundation, Mumbai is an educational initiative spearheaded by Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK) across three blocks of Chouparan, Churchu and Sadar in Hazaribag district of Jharkhand. Located in the villages within easy access, RCCs provide remedial teaching to school-going children, especially girls, from socially and economically weak backgrounds with focus on tuitions, regular tests and regular parental interaction. Classes VIII, IX, and X receive additional inputs in Mathematics, Science, and English and the students also take part in various extra- and co-curricular activities organized by RCCs. The major achievements of the programme include improved academic performance indicated by higher pass percentages and better divisions; increased understanding of subjects by the students; a better appreciation of the value of education by parents of students; as well as efficient support of public systems of education.
BPF was commissioned to interview and compile case studies of children who have been positively impacted by their exposure to Agastya model, and publish a booklet (Blazing Fireflies) of a hundred stories that narrate the nature of Agastya’s interventions and their subsequent impact on children, teachers, parents as well as the society they live in.
Agastya International Foundation has an innovative and integrated creative learning center in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh unmatched in its scale and mission. Its Creativity Lab, boasts of learning centres and labs for science, ecology, astronomy and art among other subjects. With 45+ Science Centres, 110+ Mobile Labs, 105+ Lab-in-a-Box-sets, 30+ Lab-on-Bikes it provides hands-on science education for children and teachers. Agastya’s unique model transforms and stimulates children’s thinking in five areas: awareness, curiosity, creativity, problem-solving and leadership skills. Another 100 case studies were compiled by BPF as Shooting Stars which may be published by Agastya later.
Agastya appointed BPF in 2012 to conduct an impact assessment of its ecosystem (science centres and mobile labs) on participating students, teachers, government, and the larger community, and this study was published in November 2014.
Agastya International Foundation is a Bangalore-based education trust which provides hands on science education to children in public schools in villages across 15 States in India. Through its science centres and mobile labs it sparks curiosity and creativity among children by using low-cost teaching materials and experiments. Findings of the study showed that while awareness was observed across all students, even among those with few exposures, only students exposed more than three times to Agastya demonstrated higher skills and behavioural changes such as curiosity, creativity, problem-solving skills, and leadership.
This impact assessment studied the effects of an education programme that is funded by the Axis Bank Foundation (ABF), and implemented by the Mumidipudi Venkatarangaiah Foundation (MVF) in Nalgonda district, Telangana.
MVF has worked for the ‘right to education of all children’ since 1991 and has been implementing the Quality Improvement in Primary Education Programme in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh, with the support of the Axis Bank Foundation (ABF) since August 2007. So far MVF has implemented three projects sanctioned by ABF in the periods 2007-10, 2010-12, and 2012-13. The project currently covers 156 gram panchayats (GPs) in nine mandals of Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh. Findings show that as a result of MVF’s intervention, there was a marked improvement in student attendance rates (from 79 per cent in September 2010 to 84 per cent in August 2013), and a corresponding decrease in absenteeism across all nine project mandals. Schools now display an improved capacity to address the learning needs of their students, especially with the incorporation of on-going evaluation mechanisms such as the CCE.
Agastya commissioned BPF to produce a visual booklet that showcased the achievements of 50 children from Hubli, Bijapur, and Bangalore who have excelled due to Agastya’s interventions, with the purpose of drawing the attention of government, funders, and experts in the field of education to Agastya’s success stories.
For the Ministry of Human Resource Development
Policy inputs to enable the Ministry to locate literacy programmes within women's collectives and embed literacy into the empowerment process, thereby increasing social and community insights into educational processes.
For DFID, India
compendium that covers best practices and innovations in the Mahila Samakhya programme across eight states and showcases the icons among them. The core practices include (a) the Adult Literacy programmes that impart need-based literacy and numeracy (b) Nari Adalats (women's courts) that deliver gender justice (c) Mahila Shikshan Kendras (MSKs), residential schools for young adolescent girls, and (d) Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs), a national programme which mainstreamed the MSKs. The innovations include (a) the Data Exhibition in Assam (b) the Panchayat Literacy Programme for Women in Uttarakhand.
For GTZ, an Indo-German bilateral technical cooperation initiative
BPF has the capacity to engender a variety of areas - governance, corruption, resilience, climate change, energy, and so on. The primary objective of this study, commissioned by GTZ, an Indo-German bilateral technical cooperation initiative in 2007, was to develop a gender strategy to help expand technical opportunities for women. BPF researched technical training institutes across five states in India and found that open access alone does not boost the enrollment of women in technical and vocational education and training institutes TVETs. What is required is a deliberate gender strategy that involves active recruitment, adaption to the needs of women and dialogue on gender mainstreaming. We formulated a five-module gender toolkit centred on gender planning, budgeting, sensitisation, implementation of gender plans, and monitoring.
