These have become the guiding beacon for the current ongoing pilot project of Residential Educational Course of SWRC, Tilonia. The pilot involves four villages. A Resource Centre has been setup in Singla – one of the field centre of Tilonia. A seven month Bridge Course has been initiated with 50 children who never went to school or were early dropouts.

SANDHAN is extending technical support to this initiative; which includes – initial orientation of locally identified teachers, assisting them in preliminary assessment of learning levels of children, pedagogic inputs, involving accelerated-learning techniques, constant follow-up, review and planning processes and ongoing documentation of the processes.



 

Quality education in primary schools has always been a priority for SANDHAN. This aspect has been informed by extensive research and evaluation studies that SANDHAN has undertaken over the past years in many districts of Rajasthan.

The impact of centralized teachers training was not being evident in classroom transactions. The specific context of the school was important. Also the isolation of the school had to be broken.

Towards this endeavor Sandhan had its engagement with improving quality of education in 50 primary schools – 25 each in Tonk and Dolphur districts of Rajasthan, with resource support from UNICEF. A six member school support team, supported by Sandhan faculty provided onsite support to the teachers of the schools in their specific context. This fresh approach was required to address the needs of teachers within the state managed system delivery system. There was space for continuous reflection analysis and revision in this process.

It was envisaged that through this initiative:
 

		Teachers would receive training within school and class context.
		Multilevel teaching techniques would be adopted.
		Low cost need based learning materials would be created and transacted in the class room.
		Based on learnings and insights of this engagement, advocacy would be done with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Demonstration Impact has started percolating among teachers in few schools. Teachers started coming to school on time. Multilevel teaching techniques, while working with one or more than one class were adopted in some of the regular government schools where Sandhan was interacting. Teachers demonstrated the use of low cost need based appropriate learning material prepared by them. A change in over all environment of school was visible- especially in prayer sessions, hygiene and sanitation aspects of the school as well as children. Use of Melas as a strategy for quality education has been demonstrated.



 

		Dialogue between students and teachers are significant to melt the barrier between the two. These in turn have enhanced the learning process as well as the motivational levels of both teachers and students.
		Multilevel learning techniques must take in to cognizance specific learning needs and styles of every child.
		Use of Multilevel teaching techniques, workshops/ trainings at school level, planning meetings, interactions with the communities (social audits of schools), information dissemination through community radio, special activities like Bal melas, regular dialogues with representatives of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - all these have been used as strategies for strengthening quality in education in the 50 Government schools in Tonk and Dholpur districts of Rajasthan. SANDHAN’s understanding that multiple contextually appropriate interventions should converge and be built in similar framework within the state managed system, was reaffirmed. This approach is currently being adopted for other educational initiatives to which SANDHAN is extending support.
		SANDHAN’s experiences of interaction with children and teachers have also revealed that role of teachers are a vital link between classroom transaction and use of library as a pedagogic technique. If teachers, during regular teaching process, use books, other than text for this reading, teaching learning processes become inspiring for both teachers and students.
		The head teacher plays a significant role in coordinating and balancing between academic and co curricular activities during classroom transaction. Active imaginative planning is vital for effective management.
		Visits to the schools on a regular basis contribute positively in breaking the isolation of schools.
		This research has once again broken the myth that rural community is not interested in educating their children. If schools demonstrate children’s learning processes, children want to attend schools; Parents become friends of the school and encourage their children to be regular .

Through this quality Education Project, in addition to the school engagement, SANDHAN extended technical resource support to Rajasthan Council of Elementary Education (RCEE) for preparation of teachers training modules; conducted several training and orientation programs that reached out to approximately 650 state and district level key resource persons. The training modules have had a impact and some of them have been transacted across Rajasthan through RCEE targeting as many as 80,000 primary school teachers.