Government School Programs

  • Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Schools (AMC)

Taking note of Gyan Shala’s success in ensuring high learning levels in its own managed classes, the government invited Gyan Shala to start a pilot quality improvement program in a representative sample of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) Schools over 2007-11. A set of 23 schools were randomly chosen for implementing the pilot and another set of randomly selected schools were identified as the control-comparison group to study the program impact.

The AMC school teachers adopted Gyan Shala curriculum material and pedagogy, and children were provided similar teaching-learning material used in Gyan Shala classes. Gyan Shala trained AMC school teachers in its pedagogy and use of its learning material and deployed a small team of experienced staff to support teachers in the program implementation.

In the first year, the program covered around 2000 children studying in grade 1. In subsequent years, the existing batches moved one grade up, and a new grade 1 class was brought under the program coverage. The program covered around 7800 children and around 190 teachers of grades 1-4 in the year 2009-10.

The analysis of students’ test score over 2008-09 and 2009-10 by Educational Initiatives (EI), an independent agency, showed that the program helped raise children’s score in math and language competencies, compared to children’s score in other AMC schools, by 25-65%, across subjects and grades. The program cost came to INR 500-650/- per child per year. AMC normally spends almost INR 18,000/- per child per year on running its school. A learning gain of 25-65% for an additional spending of INR 600/- per child made this program a good investment of resources.

In the year 2010-11, the program ran into opposition from a group of teachers and elected members of the AMC school board. This is not uncommon in working with the government system. Consequently, the program was suspended for 2010-11. Some people referred the issue to the top political leadership of the state, pointing out that a program benefitting around 8000 children had been discontinued. The State leadership decided that the program curriculum would be referred to the Gujarat State Council of Education Research (GCERT), and could be resumed on being cleared by it. GCERT cleared the Gyan Shala curriculum with some suggestions for improvement, all of which were acceptable to Gyan Shala, but due to political resistance at the local level, the program could not restart, in spite of top-level support from the politico-administrative setup.

Detailed impact assessment report can be accessed at :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1k6EsDylXBfm0EBAGKRbigjFaPQUvmb0-

  • Bihar Government Schools

Building on this experience, though, Gyan Shala could secure the agreement of the Government of Bihar to initiate a 3-year pilot in 7300 schools, mostly rural, in four districts of Bihar, to introduce the curriculum and class practices developed by Gyan Shala. It was decided that under the pilot, each child will receive daily worksheet, for each subject, as happens in Gyan Shala.

The worksheets designed for the program practices have been adopted as textbooks-workbooks for all the students of Grades 1 and 2 in the entire state of Bihar covering 73000 schools starting from 2015. So, the program impacted around 0.6 million children every year for 2014-15 which rose to 6 million children every year from 2015 onwards.

  • Delhi Municipal Schools (SDMC)

Gyan Shala had been invited for partnership with 4 Government Schools of Delhi, for academic management. Education Alliance, Delhi had organized for the Gyan Shala partnership in ‘School Quality Enhancement Program’ (SQEP) in SDMC (South Delhi Municipal Corporation) schools with low enrollment numbers for the years 2015-16 and 2016-17. The schools were Ber Sarai, Mundhela Kalan, Rawta and Dariyapur Khurd. The latter three schools are in Najafgarh zone near to Haryana border of Delhi. We had introduced daily worksheets for each subject, teacher guides and activity materials, prepared and distributed in alignment with NCERT textbooks used by SDMC schools tor Grades Nursery to Grade 5. This experience added organizational learning for School Management with Govt. partnership, in addition, to creating Hindi materials suitable to Delhi children as per NCERT textbooks. This program has also led Gyan Shala team to create curriculum planning and learning materials for Preschool – Nursery (Early Childhood Education – ECE).

Details of the programs discussed above are as follows:

Name of Project AMC School Program 2008-2011 Bihar Govt. School Program 2014-2016
Objective To improve learning levels in 38 Government Municipal Schools in Ahmedabad To introduce Gyan Shala curriculum model for improving learning levels in 7300 Government Schools in 4 districts of Bihar
Target Beneficiaries (direct) Municipal School Children (grades 1-4) 0.6 million Govt. School children (grades 1-2)
Geographical Location Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Schools Govt. Schools of Jehanabad, Jamui, Vaishali and West Champaran districts.
Implementation Model                             Based on Gyan Shala Model
No. of Beneficiaries impacted 8000 Children in AMC schools Nearly 6 million children every year in Govt. schools 2015 onwards
Project Start and End Date 2008-2011 2014-2017
Details of Donors/Funding Agencies Michael & Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) &

SSA – Govt. of Gujarat

 Education Above All Foundation, Qatar;

Bihar Govt.