Schools lack infrastructure, commitment and accountability on part of the teachers and appropriate pedagogy that would support the children in building their competency levels, skills and capacities that would be useful in building a better future for one self. Also a large number of children are not able to access quality education and in most cases they drop out of schools due to linguistic barriers/ challenges.  They belong to linguistic minority communities and they comprise children of many forest dwelling, adivasi/ tribal communities (a population of around 100 Million).

Quality education, delivered at scale, is the biggest challenge and researchers unanimously agree that a good teacher is the single most powerful predictor of student performance & development. Yet, we face a shortage of 9.1 million teachers internationally. Further, studies indicate up to 90% of existing teachers need re-skilling to adapt to the 21st century classroom. Poor classroom experience results in 480 million students dropping out before finishing secondary school. There is a global need to improve quality of our teachers.

There is a significant population of children in rural areas, growing up in disadvantageous circumstances.  Schools in this area are characterized by a multilingual society posing a great challenge for the education of children. The spoken language at home is different from medium of instruction in schools for these children.  The pedagogy does not have ample scope to explore alternate learning spaces leading to lack of innovative and sensitive approaches to support the children to cope up with linguistic gaps. This has severely affected basic learning skills within the children and reflects in the poor competency levels (reading, writing, arithmetic and life skills) among these children.

AEA proposes an intervention, through which steps are taken to bring teachers and children in rural areas out of ignorance by arming them with information and education, through the use of computers, e-learning and other modern technologies. The project will promote NICT for Education and will initiate experiments to simplify and popularize its use among teachers in government schools thus enhancing learning outcomes of children. Further this intervention helps children (multi tribal groups) for smooth language transition (from mother tongue to the language of instruction in school).

Target Group:

• Children
• Teachers
• School Management Committees
• Mothers Groups

KEY OBJECTIVE

• To ensure quality learning for children through quality teaching with the support of information technology

Specific Objectives

• Improving quality education
• Promote NICT education to enhance learning outcome of children.
• The project will follow the primary principle of inclusion and participation of all critical stakeholders.
• The project will focus on quality learning of adivasi children through quality teaching.
• The project will enhance capacities of teachers on innovative & effective teaching techniques, skills & capacities of children for sustained livelihoods.
• For smooth language transition (from their mother tongue to state language),teachers are also prepared to learn children’s language through the language dictionary and by using pictorial glossary of words and sentences developed and uploaded in  digital hand device (computer tablets) provided to them. 

KEY FOCUS AREAS

• Enhance competency levels and prepare children for higher education
• Promoting community participation in school governance
• Enhancing capacities of Teachers and promoting innovative and inclusive pedagogy
• Developing ICT skills amongst children thereby enabling them to access wider sphere of knowledge and learning
• Building awareness on health & hygiene and encouraging ecological restoration

EXPECTED RESULTS:

• Children achieve acceptable competency levels.
• Improved education governance in the schools.
• Enhanced capacities of the teachers on innovative and effective teaching techniques with support of NICT.
• Smooth language transition from mother tongue to state language.
• Sustained, active and coordinated multi-stakeholder engagement to advocate for quality education.

Project supported by

Childaid Network is a charitable foundation for children in need. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Pranab Panging – Regional Manager – Guwahati Regional Office, AEAI South Asia

Mobile: +91 – 94355 40587

or

Kankana Borah – Program Officer – Guwahati Regional Office, AEAI South Asia

Mobile: +91 – 94353 07052