“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Mahatma Gandhi
So much is being said about empowering/educating rural women with required skills to make them self-sustaining and independent, but how many are working towards this? Sarva Shiksa Abhiyan (SSA) and NGOs are pitching in their bit, but lot more needs to happen. Unless this mission education moves in at super speed the transformation wouldn’t be palpable. Having said that it’s very important to take a look at the work and dedication of various organisations who have committed themselves to begin and become the change they want to see. One such project is Vidya Chaitanyam which is determined to empower the rural folk and gear India towards development.
CfBT Education Services (CfBTES) was approached by the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP) to start off Vidya Chaitanyam in 2008, the project started in 2009 and had officially ended on March 31, 2011. But when SSA has seen the impact of Vidya Chaitanyam in100 schools of Anantapur district it approached CfBTES to launch this in 500 more schools. Michael Latham, Director South Asia - CfBT Education Trust, shared about the project, the joy and fulfilment that ran through the whole team, in conceptualizing and executing it. He is the chief architect of this project and a world renowned expert in “Public Private Partnerships in Education”
It is better to call Vidya Chaitanyam a campaign rather than a project. Its main stakeholders are rural women and children. The best part is that the women (who form Self Help Groups with Govt’s help) are given the right to do the quality- check to ensure that the end product would turn to be premium. Sounds unbelievable? Yes. It isn’t surprising when a hard core academician can audit a school and come up with a comprehensive report with remedial measures, but what baffles you is when you see the women from these Self Help Groups (SHG) hold the score card and actually evaluate the school/teachers where their children are studying. Let’s know more about Vidya Chaitanyam—which incidentally means awareness in education—this awareness is brought about by women/parents who initiate the change they want to see. Read on...
Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh has been identified by the SERP with a view to develop a model of SHG members ‘active participation in improving the quality of education in schools. This initiative is the first of its kind as the component of education has been introduced to the SHG members very recently.
The main objective of this programme is to facilitate better access to communication regarding educational rights, provision of quality and community’s participation in this process with key decision makers at the district, mandal and the Village Organisation (VO) level, including the SHG members and the Community Based Organisations (CBOs).
At present, the key informal stakeholders in the education process – children and their parents - are relatively poorly organised, even within the SHG movement, lacking representative input into policy discussions that might influence or change the debate around educational quality (But this doesn’t disappoint or demotivate them)
Scope of the Project
The project was initially planned to be implemented in six districts from three regions (Telangana, Rayalaseema and Andhra) of Andhra Pradesh. After several deliberations with SERP, the scope of the project was changed to six mandals from Ananthapur district, in order to have (i) a better impact and (ii) for depth of coverage and (iii) to include the partner SHGs right from the mandal level to the VOs and SHGs at the grassroots level. DfID are informed of the change in the scope of work and have given their consent considering that the beneficiary numbers / target groups will not be affected. In keeping with the project guidelines and in consultation with SERP, six mandals and 60 Village Organizations (Panchayats) of Anantapur have been short listed.
The Approach
This programme aims at not only raising awareness regarding educational rights (as provided by the Indian Constitution) but also on building the capacity of SHG women in understanding quality in education and empowering them in accessing quality. The programme interventions will motivate the SHG women to take the lead through active participation in the school development process by means of a school score card. This includes, inter alia, assessment of the existing quality of inputs, monitoring, provision of quality inputs and review.
The Rights based Approach to Quality in Education lays emphasis on the community’s role to be aware of their educational rights and demand services which they are entitled to.
Strategy
The strategy consists of three major components:
(i) Capacity building of SHGs
(ii) Setting up the Mandal Education Resource Centres
(iii) Use of the School Score Card
(i) Capacity building of SHGs: First of all, the broad programme plan will be shared with the Office bearers of the Zilla Mahila Samakhya, the Anantha Maha Samakhya (the umbrella unit for the six identified mandals), the respective six Mandal Mahila Samakhya representatives and the staff of the District Rural Development Agency in Anantapur to get their inputs before actual implementation. After a one-day orientation at the district and later at the mandal level, the representative General Body members of all the six mandals will be asked to select the 10 VOs where the programme inputs will be implemented. The selection of the VOs is based on the VO having mature SHGs, large number of schools and a fairly large school going population.
Women SHG members will become not only more aware of their rights but will also be equipped with the knowledge of how to claim these rights (from those who provide them).
(ii) Setting up the Mandal Education Resource Centres: The project envisages setting up of six MERCs, one in each mandal that will cater to the needs of all the ten villages / habitations within its vicinity. The Mandal Education Resource Centre is equipped with resources required by a school in the form of manpower (expertise), material and teaching learning material (TLM). A pool of experienced teachers/HMs or Mandal Resource Persons, skilled in teaching and training, will provide support to needy schools through sharing best practice.
(iii) Use of the School Score Card: All the 60 VOs covered by the programme will have to select one/two schools each for school development initiatives on a pilot basis. SHG women in the 60 VOs will be trained in the use of a school score card. Using simple tools the SHGs and the school HMs will jointly assess the quality of education provided by the village school (government or private). Suitable interventions will then be recommended to the school management committees and will be made part of the School Development Plan. This plan will then be monitored at regular intervals.
Training Methodology
Training of the SHGs will be done through existing channels, viz. the SHG federations at the district, mandal and VO levels. The methodology will be simple and based on interactive approaches using training modules in the local language. The content of the modules is three pronged and will help the participants
(i) To understand the four basic educational rights,
(ii) Strategies to claim their rights for quality in education and
(iii) Participation in the school development process.
Some of the Expected Outcomes of Vidya Chaitanyam are:
Increased levels of awareness among the SHGs about their educational rights and know how regarding how to exercise their rights in relation to government provision.
Key messages on educational rights and quality in education are disseminated throughout the mandals and outside through rallies, kalajathas, training and printed materials by the SHG groups themselves.
Improved quality of education in the schools availing the School Development Services through the Mandal Education Resource Centres.
SHG women become aware of and are more inclusive in their functioning, better representation of other marginalised groups.
Incidentally Kalajathas are powerful tools to disseminate message of literacy. Says Michael Latham, “Every village has different dialects and extreme variations even if the villages are immediate neighbours. It was very challenging and exciting for our team to understand this folk form Kalajatha, which is an amalgamation of street play and drama, clubbed with rustic music, it wasn’t until we actually implemented this did we know what a potent tool it was in taking our message to the villagers. In fact the reach this folk form has is terrific, because it got back many dropouts back to school and suddenly pepped up lives of many little children who wanted to go to school, but couldn’t, because of various reasons.”
On a parting note he said restarting Vidya Chaitanyam has revived the spirit of their own team which excitedly got back on their toes to ‘create ripples’ in 500 new schools!
A CASE STUDY -
Garisenapalli is unfortunately a very faction-affected village located 12 km off the Bathalapalli - Kadiri Highway some 30km away from Mandal headquarters. Around 30 families have lost their bread earner and villagers live in fear of further clashes. A decade back, the SHG programme was introduced to assist the women-headed families to earn a livelihood. The formation of the Samatha Village Organization (VO) has helped SHGs to improve community cohesion and participation for communal village development. Ms. Radha, a committed young education activist in the Vidya Chaitanyam, wanted to help the children of their village but initially she faced resistance from the school. However, with support from the Mandal Education Coordinators and Mandal Mahila Samakhya Office bearers, she started educating the parents in the SHG meetings about the AMC meetings. She educated them on the education rights and how to monitor the school activities with the School Score Card. After some eight months of effort, parents started to attend to AMC meeting in large numbers with the result that the school staff has started to come on time by hiring an autorickshaw.