A strong numeracy and literacy development in early grades is the foundation for all future learning. However, children studying in government schools are not learning due to lack of understanding what is being taught in the classes. According to an ASER (the Annual Status of Education Report) report of 2019, of 6-year-old children in Class 1, nearly 42% of those in private schools could read words in comparison to only 19% from government schools. Foundational literacy and numeracy have been one of the major educational concerns for India which National Education Policy: 2020 states to achieve by 2025. We, at Vibha, also have been ideating and planning with our partnered projects, who are working in public education domain, to contribute in achieving foundational numeracy and literacy goal of the country.
Vibha’s new partner, Language Learning Foundation (LLF), has been addressing the problem of language and literacy since 2015. They primarily work with the government schools by conducting training for schoolteachers, Cluster Resource Coordinators (CRC), Block Resource Coordinators (BRC) and other people working at various levels in the education system in Early Language and Literacy (ELL) and Multilingual Education (MLE) to teach tribal children using their home language to learn school language, particularly Hindi at the school level. With a vision of providing children strong foundational skills and abilities of language and literacy in home as well as school language and enable these children to learn and grow to their full potential, LLF has its intervention in five states of India at present: Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
Vibha is supporting LLF’s Neev: Early Learning Improvement Programme project in Durg district of Chhattisgarh. This project covers 200 schools, out of which 150 schools are supported by HT Parekh (an initiative by HDFC bank) and the remaining 50 schools are supported by Vibha.
During the past 6 months of school closure due to the global pandemic, LLF has begun to implement most of the professional development programs in an online blended learning mode by designing a comprehensive initiative called Har Ghar School (a school in every home) for supporting home/community learning of 75,000 children in Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Bihar