Addressing Equity Issues in Education Avehi-Abacus Project

The Avehi Abacus Project (initiated in 1989) has been actively engaged in strengthening the quality and content of public education and aims at working for realizing instruments and processes towards an equitable Right to Education. AAP has produced and mainstreamed two integrated supplementary courses: Sangati (for children in middle-schools) Being used by school teachers in 905 Mumbai Municipal Schools. ( Aprox. 45,000 children and 1200 teachers per academic year) Manthan (for student teachers - Diploma in Teacher Education - D.TEd.). Being used in all the colleges and DIET in Panvel District. (Aprox. 250 students and 10 teacher educators) Reaching out to teachers through In-service capacity building workshops for Sangati (Aprox 10,000 teachers)

Effective Strategies The uniqueness and relevance of the course content in keeping with the felt need of practitioners Effectively communicating the vision/world view in relation to education and society to the participants High quality TLM and course material Periodic but consistent In-service training/orientation workshops for teachers and teacher educators for understanding feedback and to provide opportunities for peer interaction Informal capacity building through regular field follow-up Active engagement of teachers in transaction/feed-back and structured self-learning material High quality demo sessions either during workshops or during field-use

Key Changes Multi disciplinary teaching Deepening of understanding vis-a-vis ‘school and society’ Active engagement, invocation of critical pedagogy Use of AAP material during non AAP classes to supplement and/or complement regular syllabus. Enhanced motivation Democratization of interpersonal relationships - Amongst students and in students and teachers Development of skills towards self-learning and self-assessment

Issues in SSA TE Programmes Inequity in school system Lack of clarity regarding policy issues and Constitutional vision Constant changes and lack of analysis of what worked/didn’t Lack of teacher professionalism Obsolete Pre-Service TE lack of ownership of responsibility at highest level Lack of personal stake in system Lack of transparency Lack of understanding/use of contextual factors Extremely weak TOT model Ignorance regarding ‘best practices’/lack of positive role-models Non-existent/mechanical or ineffective follow-up Lack of consolidations of gains made thus far

Key Recommendations Commitment to Constitutional goals and CRC Clarity of Educational Vision that is organically related with the Societal Vision Recognizing the rightful place of the teacher/professionalism In-depth planning by factoring in contextual peculiarities Rigorous follow-up, mapping, data-analysis YES to Adaptability but NO to Arbitrary, Constant Changes Transparency and Accountability at every stage

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