Education

PROJECT ‘MUSKAN’- SUPPORTING GOVERNMENT RURAL PRIMARY EDUCATION SYSTEM
Primary education is the bed block on which a nation builds its future. Though, massive efforts have been made by the Government and the non Government sectors, coverage and quality of education, particularly in the rural Government primary schools, are still far from satisfactory. Jubilant is committed to contribute its bit in bringing improvements in this vital sector of education.

After detailed deliberations with social workers and experts in the field of education, Jubilant evolved a unique participatory approach to help bring improvements in Government Primary Schools in rural areas. The basic idea was to bring all stakeholders namely the villagers, teachers, students, Panchayati Raj Institution members, local authorities and others on board to get all

As a pilot, the Sultanther Government Primary School near Gajraula in Western U.P. was selected. The idea was to test the module developed and then progressively extend the same to other schools. The project was launched in July 2007

The above is aimed to be achieved with full involvement and cooperation of the community, thus ensuring its sustainability.
In ‘Muskan’, a structured approach for implementation is adopted covering four stages -

Advocacy
The objectives of the project are deliberated in detail with the District Administration and Block Level Education Authority, to win their support and co-operation.

Sensitization
With a view to obtain participation from all important stakeholders, trainings and workshops are conducted for Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) members and the opinion leaders, who have considerable influence and enjoy a fair degree of trust in the community. Once they are convinced about objectives of the project, they discuss these with the parents and convince them for their participation in the project.

Implementation
Implementation phase of the project involves a series of steps starting with restructuring of the School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC), if required, to ensure representation of all stakeholders including parents. Capacity building of the SDMC is carried out through trainings/workshops in developing vision for their school, gap analysis in the existing system so that it can guide the school in its march towards improvements.

It is followed by an admission drive to bring 100 % children to school, tracking left outs, drop outs and attendance. For motivating the parents to send their wards to the school, various innovative schemes are taken up including recognition and rewards.

For improving the school environment, cleanliness and plantation drives are taken up involving students, events like birthday celebrations, reading out important news, recognition of good work done etc are organised during the morning prayers and annual study tours to civic services like working of the post office, bank, fire station, health centres etc are arranged, apart from culture and sport activities.

Trainings for teachers are arranged at regular intervals and activity based teaching modes are encouraged through interesting teaching aids to bring in gradual improvement in the quality of teaching in the school.

Sustainability
Community involvement and monitoring mechanism to track improvements would help towards long term sustenance of the initiative.

Community Involvement
At the Sultanther school, there were 6 teachers for 8 classes (the school covers up to standard 8). With the ‘Muskan’ project beginning to show results, the villagers realized the need for more teachers for better performance of school and proposed to employ local qualified youths. JBF and community shared the cost. This exemplifies the extent of involvement and ownership in the project by the community.

Monitoring of progress
Parameters relevant for assessing the effectiveness of a rural primary school include absenteeism rate, drop out rate, frequency of SDMC meetings, attendance of the SDMC members during the meetings, cleanliness of the school, discipline in the school and parents’ involvement in the day to day affairs of the school. A detailed baseline survey of these parameters was conducted prior to taking up the pilot project. These were monitored regularly during the tenure of the project to assess its progress

Time taken for implementation
The pilot project at the Sultanther School was meant for one academic session.

Results
Efforts by the Foundation and other stakeholders gradually transformed the school environment and results started showing -

These results in the pilot school at Sultanther were noticed and recognized by the District Administration and the School rating went up from category ‘C’ to category ‘A’. The District Education Authorities were appreciative of the project and requested Jubilant to expand project ‘Muskan’ to other primary schools in the area. An MOU has been signed between the education authorities and the Foundation outlining the roles of each and thus giving Project ‘Muskan’ official recognition.

The project was started in the pilot school at Gajraula in 2007.It has since been extended to 15 schools in 2008 and 35 schools in 2009 at four locations. Jubilant aims to extend this programme to cover 100 schools by 2012.

There is immense potential to replicate this model at village level schools elsewhere in the country. Many industries have ‘education’ in their community development agenda. ‘Muskan’ can be replicated at all such locations. It would, however, need commitment and perseverance to bring results.