AVEHI ABACUS Site Visit

September 2007

Ravi Manghani

AVEHI ABACUS is an initiative of AVEHI charitable trust that started in 1990 from a Hindi medium school in Mahalakshmi, Mumbai with the aim of developing a supplementary curriculum for schools. For the next five years, project worked with one class from grade III to VII. Based on the feedback and the overall experience, the program was spread to 25 municipal schools and 35 NFE centers. It was in 2001 that the curriculum took the form of Sangati kits in 180 municipal schools of two wards in Mumbai. The Sangati curriculum in current form is divided into six kits (two kits per academic year, grades V-VII). The six kits are based on the following themes - 1) Me, myself and my body, 2) Our earth and the web of life, 3) How societies developed, 4) The way we live, 5) Understanding change and 6) Preparing for our future. After successfully implementing the curriculum in these schools from 2001 to 2006, AVEHI Abacus was granted permission to introduce the curriculum in all the 904 schools in Mumbai. Asha Seattle has supported the project since 2000. For details about AVEHI Abacus, please visit their webpage at: http://avehiabacus.org/, and review their progress and expansion proposal for 2008-09 on Asha project webpage (http://www.ashanet.org/projects/project-view.php?p=27)

I visited the project in September 2007. It was my first visit to this project, though I have been stewarding AVEHI Abacus since 2005. The following site visit includes my observations in the main narrative itself. Towards the end of the document, I mention some of the other activities AVEHI Abacus is involved in, and also provide some suggestions and conclusions.

Day 1: On the first day of visit, I met with two of the core team members, Simantini Dhuru (project director) and Deepa Balsavar (art director), and the project coordinator, Manisha Naik. We discussed the history of AVEHI Abacus, the objectives of the program and the current plan. The structure of AVEHI Abacus activities in the roll-out is as follows: Mumbai is divided into three geographic zones. Each zone is led by an assistant program coordinator, and two field coordinators. There are 47 field observers who visit each school once every fifteen days. The visits take place Monday thru Thursday, and the observers write status reports on Fridays at the respective zonal offices, followed by weekly zonal meetings on Saturdays. All the three zones meet at least once a month at the central office in Mahalakshmi.

In September 2007, the project was in phase II of the roll-out to all municipal schools, and they were busy with kit III implementation in the schools and finalizing the drafts for kit IV, to be rolled out in the 2nd semester of 2007-08 year.

The group was forthright in talking about the hardships/challenges faced in the wide-scale implementation of the curriculum. Some of the internal challenges were funding from an agency that ran out in end of 2007 and the available human resource. The 2nd challenge mentioned here was particularly affecting optimal monitoring of the expansion in all schools. The time consumed in traveling to 5-6 schools everyday and attending the classes, does not leave sufficient time for the field observers to follow up with the lower classes that are learning kits other than the ones being rolled out in the current year. Hence AVEHI does not require mandatory use of kits rolled out in previous years. AVEHI Abacus core team felt that it is not ready for a sustainable expansion of its capacity to the extent that would ensure simultaneous monitoring of all the previous kits and new roll outs.

Another issue that AVEHI Abacus has been facing in the last two years is the lack of cooperation from the Mumbai municipal corporation's (BMC) education department to schedule the teacher training/orientation workshops prior to rolling out the kit for the specific grade. This has severely hampered the efficient dissemination of pedagogical philosophy and techniques to the teachers who teach the Sangati curriculum at the schools. AVEHI Abacus team has tackled this problem rather remarkably by having the field observers in a more hands-on fashion with the teachers during the in-class sessions. This is a compromise putting a lot of burden on the observers to train the teachers while at work. AVEHI Abacus though was successful in conducting workshops for the middle-level municipal management (beat officers, superintendents and other officers), thereby gaining their support and building a strong network within the organization. One direct outcome of these workshops was when a beat officer impressed with the effectiveness of Sangati kits, proposed the kits to be used for schools for mentally challenged children. This has been a challenging experience, though anecdotal evidence shows that implementation of Sangati kits has improved concentration span, recollection, and social and motor skills of these children.

Day 2: I visited AVEHI Abacus's office on the day it was having its monthly staff meeting, where I got to sit through the meeting of all the field observers. It was a very informal affair, and was told later by Manisha that these meetings are completely run by the field observers. Each month, field observers from a particular zone take-up the organization, including setting the agenda, moderating the meeting and taking care of the follow-up items. The meetings include fun items such as poems (since I visited them towards the end of monsoon season, I was lucky to listen to a couple of poems on rain), essays from history and group games. The main purpose of the meetings is to provide a platform for building camaraderie, sharing best practices and helping with issues faced by the observers from the school authorities, teachers or students. It was enjoyable to see them hum and clap in unison encouraging their co-workers who recited poems and offer suggestions to their peer on how to handle sticky situation with a teacher.

I also happened to meet the eight core-team members as they were meeting on that day to lay-out the plan for the academic year, and beyond. They finalized the drafts for the kit 4 and also talked about some possible collaboration with other non-profits. I was told that the core-team was working on retranslating the teacher's manuals and worksheets in English due to the increased interest in the curriculum from some English medium private schools in Mumbai and also outside of Maharashtra. The group has been conscious in the last few years to make the curriculum generic enough to facilitate adoption from non-Mumbai schools, but at the same time not losing their focus - familiarity with issues related to Mumbai. They were confident that the curriculum could easily be adopted by any urban school or even a school in rural setting (in fact, in the past, UNICEF had implemented the kits in 120 schools in Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts of Maharashtra, thereby strengthening their belief about the universal applicability of these kits). Though the group talked about possibility of future collaborations, they did not lose sight of the immediate task at hand, that was sending kit 4 for printing before the Diwali break (as the kit 4 was due for implementation in the 2nd semester of 2007-08).

This day ended with me getting introduced with the field observer I was going to accompany on my trip to schools to see the Sangati kits in action.

Day 3: I met with Yogita who is the field observer for schools in Andheri-east suburb. Yogita has been with AVEHI Abacus for less than a year. She has almost a decade of teaching experience in Gujarati medium schools. Before joining AVEHI Abacus as a field observer, she taught at a private school that closed down due to drop in enrollment in vernacular medium schools, with more and more parents wanting to send their kids to English medium private schools.

I visited two different school complexes. Each school complex housed multiple schools. The first school complex I visited is called Gundavli School. All the schools were in the middle of first semester (June-November), and kit III for grade VI students was rolled out in the beginning of the academic year.

Gundavli School had a Hindi medium school on the first floor. This was not my first visit to a municipal school, so the conditions were nothing new to me. There was one teacher supervising two classes at the same time.

 

 

The Sangati flipcharts and accompanying material (world map and worksheets) were nicely stored in the principal's office. The Sangati session that I attended was titled "Brahmand ka rahasya" (Secret of the Universe). The story starts with two friends while appreciating the colors in the sky at sunset, talk about the universe (galaxies, planets, etc.) and its origin. Most of the students in class were paying attention in the session, some were more interested in the stranger in their classroom, while others were sitting idly. The in-class activity involved the use of world map. The teacher mixed mythology with science a few times in the session proving that even with best resource materials, it is difficult to isolate inherent biases.

 

 

I also attended the Marathi medium school's class, which because of some hiring issues was running behind schedule on Sangati curriculum. This was a much more energetic class and the students were involved in the activities. The credit should also go to the teacher, who added a lot of color and experience to the already interesting topic on history of civilizations. While introducing the copper age, the teacher asked the students if they had seen copper vessels, and when a student replied affirmatively, he asked the student, "What color is copper?" To my amusement, the student answered, "The color of Copper is copper". In Marathi, the color of reddish brown color of copper is called copper.

 

 

The next school complex I visited was Chakala School. This complex hosts four schools - two Marathi medium, one Hindi medium and one Urdu medium. I could not take any photographs in this school as I was informed that I would need to take permission from the ward municipal administration to do so.

First, I visited one of the Marathi medium classes in session. The teacher for this class had recently been transferred out mid-semester, and this had left the school short on resources. The school appointed the lab instructor as the interim teacher. The make-shift teacher was having a hard-time teaching the regular courses and bringing in Sangati curriculum. He also mentioned to me that the school audits were going on, which was keeping the teachers occupied with administrative work. These have been recurring challenges for AVEHI Abacus - frequent staff transfers that make it hard for the field observers to build rapport and the non-academic duties that take time away from Sangati and other academic commitments. In the past, cancellation of teacher orientation workshops has been direct fallout of the election duties that the teachers were assigned to. Nonetheless, this teacher did a decent job of teaching the Sangati lesson, and got them interested to participate in the in-class activity.

The second Marathi medium school that we went to had its unit test (midterm exam) going on that week. Yogita was not informed about the exam, as the school reached the decision on the dates after her last visit. This is another area, where AVEHI Abacus faces a challenge - maintaining regular communication with each school.

The last school that I visited was the Hindi medium school within the same complex. This class had comparatively the least interested and most underprepared teacher. He ended up reading the entire first page of the flipchart and skipping the rest of the lesson, going on a complete tangent instead.

Other Activities: AVEHI Abacus realizes that large scale curricular changes require systemic approach, and has networking with like-minded organizations. It has created a position for a networking/advocacy coordinator who is responsible for staying in touch with other advocacy groups, and participating in events. In the month of September, AVEHI Abacus was planning to participate in an event to show solidarity to the RTE bill. Simantini Dhuru is involved in the development of the "Environmental Studies" curriculum for NCERT.

The retranslation work on worksheets and teacher's manuals is being carried out keeping the universal applicability of the kits in mind. AVEHI Abacus has initiated a two-year pre-service teachers’ training module, where school teachers are provided pedagogical training using Sangati curriculum. This not only introduces the interactive style of teaching, but also increases the probability of these teachers using Sangati in the schools they serve.

Recommendations: The very first suggestion that I have for Asha Seattle is to seek out assistance from organizations/individuals based in India to conduct a thorough evaluation of the curriculum. The last such evaluation was carried out by TISS members (and commissioned by UNICEF) in 2003-04. This evaluation studied teachers' perceptions of the impact of Sangati on children. A similar study focusing on students should be considered.

AVEHI Abacus needs to think of how it will continue to stay involved once all the kits have been rolled out by end of next academic year. The team needs to plan out its responsibilities for sustainability of the curriculum in all the BMC schools. In the short term, the group should think of ways it can supervise continuous implementation of all the kits.

The group needs to come up with strategies to forge seamless communication with the schools, and seek out opportunities to train teachers in absence of the orientation workshops. The group needs to think of methodologies to improve the learning experience for classes that have bad teachers. This problem extends beyond Sangati curriculum though.