HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM (Grades 8-10)
Gyan Shala noticed that most parents in the slums are extremely reluctant to send teen-aged and adolescent girls to distant schools at the high school stage. Further, household demands to contribute to family’s economy make it difficult for the adolescent boys also to find time for a full day high school. Gyan Shala, therefore, launched its High School program in 2011-12, under the provision of open Schooling, which enables a flexible duration study program close to the residence of children.
The educational goals of a high school program, however, have not been diluted and we are targeting that this program too would generate children’s performance on par with India’s leading schools, thus opening the possibilities of professional education and future life trajectory for Gyan Shala children coming from poor families. The program adopts State curriculum goals and is structured similar to the middle school program, with three differences. First, the education and quality of teacher support in high school are upgraded. Second, High School program places a much larger emphasis on doing well in the formal Board examination, which, at present juncture, places considerable emphasis on memorization and procedural, different from conceptual, understanding which is emphasized up to middle school program in Gyan Shala. Third, High School program has a special provision for children who are not enrolled from Gyan Shala middle school program. We have noted that the standard of education in most Government and low-cost private schools is much lower than Gyan Shala students. So, the children studying in grade 8 in such schools, who are to be admitted in Gyan Shala in grades 9 and 10, are provided tutorial assistance, along with their studies in grade 8 in their old school, so they are better prepared to join grade 9 in Gyan Shala.
In the year 2014-15, the second batch of the students took the Board Exams for Grade 10. Out of 55 students, 41 students passed the test, which shows 74.54 percentage of students passing. In the same year, in the state of Gujarat, for all the students, the percentage of students passing was only 55. Thus, passing percentage of Gyan Shala is worthy of appreciation, as the program deals with all lower socio-economic strata of the population compared to the state. While comparing the same with the first batch’s passing percentage which was 72, there is also some improvement.
In 2016-17, this program was expanded into 4 new areas, having two areas with majority of minority children, specially needing such schools in their communities and we are consistently trying to expand it further (2018-19).
In 2017-18, the program had 17 classes of grade 8, 15 classes of grade 9 and 5 classes of grade 10, covering a total of 788 children, as mentioned in the following table.
| Grades | Centers | Children | Boys | Girls | Yearly Average Cost per Child (INR) |
| 8 | 17 | 342 | 159 | 183 | 12468 |
| 9 | 15 | 340 | 165 | 175 | |
| 10 | 5 | 106 | 50 | 56 | |
| TOTAL | 37 | 788 | 374 | 414 |
We expect the program design to stabilize over the next 4-5 years. Being a pilot-scale program in its development phase, per child cost of this program is high, but it should stabilize at around Rs. 10000/- per child per year when it reaches the scale of the existing middle school program.
In the year 2017-18, the fifth batch of the students took the Board Exams for Grade 10 as shown in the table below. The total of 106 students appeared for the exam and out of them 70 passed the exam. Total eight Gyan Shala students secured distinction, twelve students secured first class, fourty-eight secured second class, and seven secured pass class.
The performance of Grade 10 students in the State Board examination is as follows:
| Grade 10 State Board Performance (2017-18) | |||
| Students from Gyan Shala program (studying since grade 7 or before) | Students joining Gyan Shala grade 8 or after |
Total Students |
|
| Total no. of Students | 84 | 22 | 106 |
| Pass | 66 | 9 | 75 |
| Fail | 18 | 13 | 31 |
| Pass (%) | 79 | 41 | 71 |
| No of Students with Distinction | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| No of Students with First Class | 12 | 0 | 12 |
| No of Students with Second Class | 41 | 7 | 48 |
| No of Students with Pass Class | 5 | 2 | 7 |
The percentage of the students passing is 71 percent, which has improved compared to previous years in response to increased efforts over the years. The pass percentage of students studying for 4 or more years (since grade 7 or before) in Gyan Shala program is 79% which exceeds the results for previous years while the pass percentage of students joining Gyan Shala from grade 8 (mostly dropouts, overage students having weak foundation over grades 1-7) is 41% which has also improved as compared to the previous years. The team has started rectifying actions to improve the same through extra academic support as per the needs of such students. While analyzing the results, it was found that such students were not able to attend classes for extra support regularly as needed. So, the extra support class has been included in the regular class functioning and increased counseling has been emphasized with students as well as with their parents for ensuring class attendance for the future. In the coming years, more efforts are being planned in terms of strengthening the foundation for weak students to bring them on par with the syllabus of high school program, so as to secure improved results.
Stabilizing high school program has required us to rework our middle school and elementary programs too, since the design of those programs was not entirely oriented to meet the requirement of standard board examination of high school. We also need to evolve strategies for children joining the high school program albeit with very poor foundation over grades 1-7.
Detailed program evaluation reports can be accessed at :
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bYUtR7WRydDmnCm1vTBMrt9nqFLZM4Ld