How We Work

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Develop a critical mass of people with vision, competence and deep motivation to engage in social action. This includes developing fresh talent and building capacity in the existing talent.

Establish strong field-level institutions in the most disadvantaged areas. The field institutes create avenues for the continuing professional development of teachers and education officials. They also work to reform school curriculum, teacher-education curriculum and related issues of education policy.  

Create knowledge and evidence through research to address the challenges in education and development in the Indian context. In many of the situations, the  Society  is engaged in large scale educational research work that will create new knowledge and also support evidence based policy making.

A number of key principles inform our strategy and approach. - Education and other allied domains  Education is a powerful vehicle for social change and it is the primary focus of our      work. It also has a large positive multiplier effect on other aspects of      human life. Related domains like health, nutrition, livelihoods and      ecology have a critical bearing on education. However, we realize that it      is not possible for a single organization to work with equal intensity and      focus in all these areas and we therefore we calibrate our efforts based      on the nature of the specific challenges, our own capabilities and our      ability to work with partners and extended resources.-  Operating Organization  We are an operating organization and not a funding organization. -  At Scale All our work is aimed at creating large scale impact either directly or indirectly. We believe that in a large, complex and diverse country like India, small-scale, intense work in narrow pockets is unlikely to create any significant impact on the system.-  Integrate theory and practice Our “academia” and “practice” teams work together synergistically. While      knowledge through research is critical it must be deeply rooted in      practical ground realities, for applicability.The pedagogy is learner centred enabling conceptual clarity with active learning process. Children are encouraged to think, ask questions and explore, discuss issues, problems, share experiences, make choices and develop courage to think differently.Support is provided to every child to learn and pursue knowledge at one’s own pace; interest, capabilities and learning styles. This flexibility is structured considering realities of the existing educational system along with regular assessment measures to map effectiveness and achievement. The methods used for assessment are learner friendly, encouraging students to assess themselves, to determine the achievement of curricular objectives, track the progress of child in different areas of learning over time, identify areas where support is required, provide feedback to learners and encourage sense of accomplishmentStrict guidelines ensure that there is no use of fear as it is detrimental to learning, memorization is not the primary form of learning or assessment, assessment is not an intimidating process that involves the labelling and segregation of students, children are not be treated as passive receivers of information and school processes are designed such that they do not lead to boredom and monotonous routines and rituals.Our resources are committed to quality in learning, safety, security, comfort and care to all children to learn, grow and develop with equal concern for sustainability. Medium of instruction is the local /state language at primary level and English will be gradually introduced at subsequent stages.The emphasis is on doing the basics well like learning to read and write; and ensuring that children are not only enrolled but retained well, attend school regularly, learn and complete school.

Salient Features:

• We are a VOLUNTARY Organization with zero overheads.
• All of us meet our own out of pocket expenses on tours. Our wage and travel bills      are “NIL”.
• We      receive donations voluntarily for our program. Resource mobilization      expenditure is “NIL”.
• Our      administrative expenses are met from small amounts of interest on bank      balances.
• We have      developed transparent, objective and unbiased systems for implementation      of our program.