Big Dreams - A Pratham Field Trip

BBIIGG DDRREEAAMMSS

A PRATHAM FIELD TRIP

by

Misha Talavera

Big Dreams – A Pratham Field Trip 2011

2

SERIOUS BUSINESS

s the sleeping pill wore off, my mind regained

consciousness and my droopy eyelids opened

to reveal the world. I gazed out the window,

which, to my surprise, had changed channel since

the previous night: the grimy, decrepit infrastructure

had turned into endless grass hills; the congested

avenues to swaying two-lane roads; the smog of the

city to the countryside's crystal blue sky... I rubbed

the last remnants of sleep off my eyes and thought

to myself: welcome to Himachal Pradesh.

But, I hadn't fled New Delhi's pandemonium to vacation

on Himachal's heavenly hills. No, I was here to attend

serious business. According to Pratham's 2011 Annual

Survey on Education Report (ASER), a shocking 68.7% of

Himachal's third graders cannot read second grade texts

and 54% of first graders cannot recognize numbers

greater than 10. Most worryingly, during the 6 years that

ASER has conducted its survey, learning levels have been

stagnating, if not decreasing. This is in spite of the fact

that enrollment at the primary-school level is in the high

90 percents.

Frighteningly, this educational crisis is not limited to

Himachal: it is a nation-wide phenomenon. In fact,

Himachal is one of the best performing states, shining in

comparison to the likes of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In the

vast majority of states, despite near universal primary-

school enrollment, learning levels remain terribly low, and

in some cases, keep falling. Children are going to school,

but they aren't learning.

Education has been proved again and again to have a

huge impact on a country's economic growth and human

development. As long as India maintains such weak

educational standards, it will become increasingly harder

for it to maintain its current economic boom and to offer

its millions of people who live in abhorrent poverty

dignified lives.

A

“68.7% of third graders

cannot read second grade texts”

“learning levels have been… decreasing”

“This educational crisis …

… is a nation-wide phenomenon”

“Children are going to school,

but they aren’t learning”


3

READ INDIA

n response to this crisis, Pratham, India's largest

education NGO, both in size and in sprawl, devised the

Read India program with three clear objectives:

improve learning levels, influence teacher practices and

involve the communities. In each selected village, it

mobilized and trained volunteers to teach in the local

schools. The volunteer - equipped with the Pratham

teaching method and materials and supported by the

local Pratham members – has the duty of boosting the

academic abilities of her class, which consists of students

who were falling behind.

The program also goes beyond the classroom: it seeks to

get the whole village community involved. Parents and

village leaders are encouraged to take active interest in

their children's education and to ensure the local school

is functioning correctly. Merely providing better teaching

can only achieve so much if children are unsupported or

discouraged by their elders. By convincing the whole

community that their youth's education is of utmost

importance, Pratham increases the likelihood of its

students' success.

Currently, the program reaches out to 2.4 million children

spread out across 19 states. Pratham's strategy has been

to focus their efforts on a small (by Indian standards)

selection of villages grouped into blocks (group of

approximately 100 neighboring villages). Approximately

250 Block Excellence Programs (BEPs) are running, but

Pratham has much bigger aspirations. As Richa, the

member of the Program Review and Management Team I

was accompanying to Himachal explained to me: "we aim

to improve education at a nation-wide scale."

I “improve learning levels

influence teacher practices

involve the communities”

“2.4 million children

spread out across 19 states”

“improve education at a nation-wide scale”


4

Pratham does not try to side-step the government, nor

does it relentlessly fight it. Instead, it aims to work with it

and advise it on how to improve its education system.

Implicit in the organization's strategy is the belief that, to

effectively and sustainably change the educational

system, they must join forces with the government. A

sensible view considering India is home to 1.22 billion

people and 80% of the country’s elementary schools are

government owned. In essence, Read India is about

leading by example: the BEPs are models for the state

governments to subsequently scale-up.

To monitor the program's progress and ensure it is being

implemented correctly, Pratham conducts regular surveys.

This regular stream of feedback is then used to better the

program and prove its effectiveness to state

governments. As it happens, it was to document and help

with the two-day training for an external evaluation of

Read India that I had ventured to the Northern heights.

“Read India is about leading by example”


5

THE EXTERNAL EVALUATION

e sat in a conference room of the Himachal

Pradesh University in Shimla. On one side of the

table was the Pratham team: Joginder, the

Pratham state coordinator, Neeraj, the ASER center (the

data analysis sister organization of Pratham) state

representative, and Richa. On the other side were

Professor Chand and two Phd students, Ajay and Nisha,

who were volunteering to conduct the External

Evaluation. The training was to be carried out over two

days: first the theory, then the practice.

For the first two hours, Richa and her team gave a

thorough overview of Pratham and the Read India

program: their history, objectives and strategies. They

then tackled the External Evaluation. As a pilot program,

Pratham decided to conduct an evaluation of the Read

India program. Its sample size would be small, about 5

villages per state, as its objective was not to collect loads

of data but to identify any urging problems or features

that need to be improved or researched further. It would

seek breadth and depth: thoroughly evaluating the

effectiveness of the program by referring to all the

members involved, from the students to the Gram

Pradhan (village head) to the local Pratham Coordinators.

And, to avoid any bias, particularly when evaluating the

performance of the Pratham members, it would be

conducted by external volunteers.

Once the volunteers had understood the purpose of their

assignment, the team moved on to the attitude to be

adopted and methods to be applied when conducting

the survey. Important things like not taking a higher

moral ground when interacting with the community

members, or integrating the questions of the evaluation

into a conversation rather than blurting them out as a list.

Finally, the team wrapped up the session by going

through every single question on the evaluation, clearing

up confusions and explaining the intention of each one. I

remain impressed by the thoroughness with which

Pratham trained its volunteers. Justifiable thoroughness

as they are the link between the realities on the field and

the organizations' headquarters.

W

“the External Evaluation…

…would identify any urging problems”

“the volunteers…

…are the link between the realities on the field

and the organization”


6

THE REALITY

he next day, we set off for the field practice.

Accompanied by the Pratham District Coordinator

(PDC), Block Coordinator (PBC) and Cluster

Coordinator (PCC, a cluster comprises 16 schools), we

ventured across Himachal’s ruthless mountain curves,

which were so sharp I had to swallow my intestinal liquids

a couple times. After a one hour rollercoaster ride, the

driver strayed off the paved road onto a bouldery path

which led us to the school, a small white and blue

concrete block hidden among the rocky hills and grass

valleys.

We entered through the small, grey gate that gave onto

the school’s two classrooms. The rooms were plain: the

children sat on the floor and the walls were uniform white

and blue with the exception of a few posters. Yet they

were sturdy: the solid concrete walls and roof ensured

classes could be held even during the monsoon, which is

not a given in India as 30% of schools have yet to be

rendered weatherproof.

We were soon joined by the government teacher, a

stubby middle-aged woman dressed in a black and red

sari who went by the name of Indu. She greeted us with a

glass of Pani (water), but very quickly, her greeting turned

into a complaint. She initially seemed to accuse Pratham

of exploiting the volunteer by putting her to work without

paying her. However, as her endless monologue rambled

on, it turned out that she was the one “exploiting” her by

pressuring her to work full time on top of the two daily

hours for Pratham. Yet, it is hard to blame Indu for

seeking extra help: she is the only teacher of the school,

in charge of more than 50 students going from first to

fifth grade. “How can I give these children an education if

I am alone?” she desperately asked.

T

Indu – “How can I give these children an education if I am alone?”


7

The lack of teachers is one of the main problems

plaguing the Indian elementary system. 12.4% of primary

schools are run by a single teacher, meaning that when

she is absent, classes are not held, and around 60% of

schools do not meet the government’s Pupil-Teacher

Ratio (PTR), which requires at least one teacher for every

thirty students. With the volunteers’ help, Indu has been

able to cover more teaching, yet she still runs multi-grade

classrooms – which generally produce lower learning

levels, yet are outstandingly common in India with 58% of

second grade children sharing a classroom with another

grade – and has even had to occasionally let the older

children “teach themselves”: when we arrived a third class

was being run on the paved terrace, without any teacher.

Indu has often requested an extra hand from the

government, but they systematically reply that they have

neither the supply nor the funding to fulfill her demands.

This is not very surprising giving that India dedicates a

relatively small portion of its GDP in it education system.

In 2006, it invested a mere 3.1%, and only a third of that

went to primary schools. The lack of funds is mostly due

to the politics governing the education system, which

essentially consist of finger-pointing. The responsibility

for the public education system is supposedly split

between central and state governments, yet what exactly

each one is commended to do remains vague. It is

therefore very common for both parties to wash their

hands and leave projects unfunded and needs unfulfilled,

claiming it was the other’s responsibility.

After the teacher had spilt her heart out, the team moved

on to the volunteer, a soft-spoken young lady wearing a

light-green sari. They asked her a few questions, such as

her reasons for volunteering and satisfaction with the

experience, and then evaluated her teaching skills and

students. Richa later told me that in theory, the teacher

should be stopped from pressuring the volunteer into

teaching extra hours, but given the desperate lack of

teachers and that the volunteer was okay with it, the

reality on the field told a different story. Moreover, in

theory, the volunteer is meant to influence the

government teacher into adopting the Pratham teaching

method, but it practice, this rarely happens as the

government teachers are often more assertive and

experienced.

12.4% are run by a single teacher

60% have more than 30 students per teacher

58% of second grade classes are multi-grade

“the politics governing the education system…

…essentially consist of finger-pointing”


8

In the meantime, I sat down with the group of fifth

graders on the terrace. Using broken English we

exchanged our names, ages and interests: India is

supposedly bilingual, but in reality, English remains

exclusive to the elite. Rather than through words they

preferred to communicate with actions: Kumar, the most

outspoken of the class, convinced me to play tag with

them. By the time the evaluation team was ready to leave,

my breath was short from the altitude and my shirt was

humid.

We left the school and followed Kumar up the dirt trail

deeper into the hills until we reached the village where

we would conduct the next part of the evaluation. He led

us through a gateway, across a yellow mustard flower

field to a turquoise house where we met with

his mother, a slim woman wearing a plain

white sari. She was asked several questions

ranging from her familiarity with the volunteer

project, her education background and her

involvement in her child’s education. She was

then asked to pick from a Pratham testing tool

what she thought was the hardest English text

her child could read, before Kumar was put to

the test.

To the mother’s great relief, Kumar succeeded, despite a

few hesitations. This was quite impressive given that she

had picked the hardest text, and, more remarkably, that

she was illiterate. Kumar is what is called a “first

generation learner”: he is the first of his family to be

completing a primary education. This phenomenon is

common in India given that the elementary education

system only started to be widely accessible in the mid

90s. It is also a very serious problem: uneducated parents

are less likely to see the benefits of education and

encourage and support their children to learn. Thus, a

child born from illiterate and uneducated parents is much

more prone to be left behind academically and drop out,

thereby continuing the vicious circle. Kumar’s mother is

an exception to the trend: despite her lack of education

she is highly involved in her child’s learning and has freed

him from the vicious circle. She is a living proof that

parent involvement in their child’s education increases

the child’s success rate.


9

During the actual evaluation, more households and the

village leader would be visited, but as it was a field

practice, we drove down to the bigger town of Solan to

our last stop: the Education For Education (EFE) center. As

an incentive and a reward for Read India’s volunteers,

Pratham offers them a combined English, soft skills and

digital literacy course. The course takes place over six

months, at the end of which the volunteer is granted an

Intel-Pratham certification which can greatly increase

their job prospects. Furthermore, the weekly get-

togethers also serve as meeting sessions with the

Pratham coordinators where the volunteers can seek help

and ask questions.

The feedback we gathered from the volunteers was

overall very positive: they enjoyed learning and

appreciated that they had a laptop to themselves for the

computer course. But one widely shared complaint arose:

the weekly classes are too spread out. As Satiam, a

volunteer, put it: “by the time I come to the next class, I

have forgotten everything I had learnt the week before!”

Given the feedback, it would seem sensible to spread the

course throughout the week. However, Pratham has

already done that in other states, and interestingly, the

volunteers there have asked for the course to be on only

one day a week as commuting to the centers is

cumbersome. This issue could simply be a “the grass is

greener on the other side of the fence” one, but it clearly

demands more research.


10

BIG DREAMS: MAKE THEM COME TRUE

hat evening, as we rolled back to Delhi, I pushed my

seat back and attempted to get some rest. But in

vain, as Hanuman, the Monkey King, was too busy

ramming his knuckles into Meghnaath’s, a demon, jaw on

the glitching, black and white screen. As sleep was not an

option, I fell into thought.

As I was interning with the ASER center – the data

collection and analysis sister organization of Pratham – I

had spent the previous weeks plowing through piles of

education indicators: 64% of children can do this; only

39% of schools have that… I knew the ASER report front

to back. Yet, making the link between numbers and

reality is oftentimes difficult. Reading that only 4% of first

graders can read English texts of their own grade level

might be slightly shocking, but only when you see the

child struggling to decipher a dead-simple text right in

front of your eyes, do you really start to think.

When I sat with the children I’d asked them (as the cliché

wants it) what they aspired to be when they “grew up”.

From soldier to scientist, prime minister to cricket player,

their ambitions had no limits. Kumar particularly caught

my attention as he and I shared the same dream of

wanting to be engineers. Of course it is inspiring to see

such big dreams emanate from their little bodies, but let’s

face the truth: the chances that Kumar becomes an

engineer are near zero. He is most likely to finish his

primary school, and if he works particularly hard and is

lucky enough he might even complete secondary school.

But then what? Only 15% of Indian children make it to

high-school, and that number drops to 7% for university.

Of course, there is a one-in-a-million chance that he

miraculously succeeds. But, the sad reality is that the vast

majority of Indian children have their dreams crushed

before they even get a shot

So yes, inspiring it is, inspiring to annihilate the gross lack

of opportunity that constricts these children to their birth

status, inspiring to eradicate the raging social injustice

that robs these children from a dignified life, inspiring to

ensure that one day, children are not only in school

learning well, but going to sleep to a dream that could

one day become reality.

T

“making the link between numbers and reality

is oftentimes difficult”

“let’s face the truth…

…the vast majority of children have their

dreams crushed before they even get a shot”


11

“Inspiring to ensure that every child

goes to sleep to a dream

that could one day

become reality”

– Misha Talavera

Documents

Big Dreams - A Pratham Field Trip