Gram Vikas Trust-Sikshana in Gujurat

– Ramesh Kasondra and Vijay Vemulapalli

Vibha-Sikshana partnership has crossed another milestone. Vibha approved a new project with GVT (Gram Vikas Trust) in Gujarat implementing Sikshana model in 15 schools, starting October 2010. This is the direct result of the 4-day workshop Vibha jointly conducted with Sikshana in July 2010. This is the second time where the Sikshana model is replicated. The first one is GORD (Gandhian Organization for Rural Development), which is already being implemented in 15 schools, with Vibha’s initiative and support. Sikshana is not a project anymore, it is a solution that can be adopted by any NGO in any part of India. 

“This is a major mile stone for Sikshana and a dream come true for me”, says E S Ramamurthy, the founder of Sikshana in appreciation of Vibha for facilitating its expansion outside the borders of Karnataka.

“We were able to organize the inauguration program of Sikshana model in Talodra primary school, Jhaghdiya District, Bharuch.  It is the right time to start quality education movement in government run schools in association with the government and this is a historic step and the first time in Gujarat to implement such a program in a tribal area”,  says Ramesh Kasondra, leading the GVT-Sikshana efforts in Gujurat.

This is how the program is typically started.

• All stake-holders (the teachers, the head-masters, the Govt officials, and the local leaders) are brought together in one function, so that the spirit of the program (non-threatening, performance-improving, bringing the focus back on teachers) is explained to all.
• The teachers are given TQM training so that they have a “starting point” and the “expectations are set”. Teachers learn about what education tools to use, management practices to adopt to improve the quality of education and how they can advance children’s life skills.
• Students are evaluated.

One teacher commented after the training, “We have attended more than 53 trainings each year. This is the first training we feel like we attended a training program that helped us learn various educational skills useful to us in the class room. This training is managed on participatory methods which gave us a chance to analyze the problems in schools and find out suitable solutions.”       

Once the program starts in the class-rooms, the focus shifts to the students, and on to improving their excitement levels through on-the-spot prizes, book-store visits, daily reading and writing programs, supply of additional material to achieve the above, etc…

At the end the year, the focus is on assessments through data-collection and analysis as you can see from the charts below.

Assessment:

Writing Skills:

For instance, writing skill assessment of 5th Std. children in 15 schools:

Reading skills:

For instance, reading skill assessment of 5th Std children in 15 schools:

Similar assessments were done for 6th Std. and 7th Std. school children in 15 Gujurat schools, all of which pointed towards the fact that these schools in and around Bharuch district, Gujurat could definitely use the Sikshana model to improve reading and writing levels of children.

This is just the beginning of the round of improvements that will be happening over time in the government schools of Gujurat. If you would like to extend your support towards GVT-Sikshana or learn more about their efforts, visit http://projects.vibha.org/projects/sikshana/, http://sikshana.org/get_involved/get_involved.html and http://www.gvtgujarat.org.in/