Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RiVER)

RiVER has 3 decades of experience in disseminating a learner-guided teaching methodology that improves learning and re-engages teachers as educators

In developing countries, many primary schools (Grade 1 to 5) in the rural areas are of a multi-grade, multi-level nature. A multi-grade, multi-level (MGML) classroom comprises children of different ages and varying abilities belonging to different grade levels. There is a considerable variation between the ages of a children, their academic competence, the study materials (mostly in the form of textbooks), and the grades they belong to. Teachers in such a classroom are expected to manage diverse learners albeit with inadequate preparation and training. Consequently, millions of children suffer in these joyless schools resulting in low-levels of learning, rampant absenteeism and high drop-out rates.

In response to these challenges, RiVER initiated a network of schools (Rishi Valley Satellite School Project) and evolved an innovative School in a Box curriculum. This is what has come to be known as the RiVER MGML pedagogy. The RiVER model allows teachers to handle primary schools in a creative way. Government curricula are adapted for local context and organized into smaller meaningful modules called ‘RiVER LEARNING LADDERS’. These ladders are linked to a series of graded fun activities which enable students to learn from things around them and from real life experiences. The ingenuity of the design lies in the fact that children from different grades and different learning levels can make use of the same material. 

Awards & Recognition 

• 2016: RiVER adjudged winners of the National Contest on Social Innovation hosted by the Govt. of India – felicitated by the Prime Minister, Shri. Narendra Modi 
• 2016: RiVER awarded the ‘Millennium Alliance award (R3) under the education sector 
• 2015: RiVER representation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions, Dalian
• 2012: The Global Journal (published from Geneva & New York) ranked RIVER as one of the top 100 most influential NGOs in the world 
• 2011: RiVER awarded the Jindal Prize in the field of Education, with emphasis on moral upliftment, with a cash award of USD 200,000 -
• 2011/2010 (RiVER representation at)
  • World Economic Summit, Davos
  • Visgrad Countries' Regional Meet (March 2011), Prague on Global Development Education
  • American India Foundation, New York
• 2009: RiVER Directors adjudged Social Entrepreneurs of the Year, India (2009) by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, World Economic Forum, Geneva - 
• 2004: RIVER awarded The Japanese Prize for the Most Innovative Development Project for 2004 by the Global Development Network at the 6th Annual Global Development Conference held at Dakar, Senegal in January 2005 - 
• Since 2003: RiVER Directors have been Ashoka Fellows (Ashoka Foundation - Everyone a Changemaker) since 2003 - 

 Other Links

• Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year, 2009: Padmanabha and Rama Rao, RiVER
• A Promising Start
• Evaluation of Activity-Based Learning as a means of Child-Friendly Education – Final Report by UNICEF
• Learning at One’s Own Pace – UNICEF 
• UNICEF-supported workshop in Rishi Valley hopes to bring children back in classrooms in The Andaman & Nicobar Islands
• AP government to introduce RIVER system in 100 schools
• Individuelles Lernen made in India
• This RIVER flows across the State
• Municipal Schools in Mumbai Focus on Better Learning

The pedagogical confusions in government schools where teachers are ill-equipped to handle multi-grade classrooms and the difficulties they face with existing textbooks was the genesis for the development of the innovative School in a Box curriculum and the RiVER MGML pedagogy

The curriculum is appropriate for children at all grade levels. It centres around educational materials that are designed to engage children and is customized to language and context. 

In addition, RiVER is working on a Training Program for teacher trainees based on the Open Distance Learning (ODL) framework developed by the Govt. of India.

RiVER, recently, started its journey towards Digital where all classroom data including a student’s progress is now stored on a cloud-based service which can be accessed using a mobile tablet by teachers. Four mobile tablets within a classroom, comprising 24 children, allow them to perform about 15-20% of their overall tasks on tablets.

RiVER has also developed a content management platform (RiVER Bank) for its content, curricula, training manuals and videos. This repository is aimed at Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of teachers and educators. This is an open source initiative and can be accessed by and contributed to, by anybody. 

Over the last few years, our stakeholders including government, UNICEF etc. have made us aware of the need for extending our pedagogy to include pre-primary as well as upper primary children.

In addition, there is also a need to extend our pedagogy for children with learning disabilities.

While the above-mentioned initiatives are bottoms-up, our Training program follows a top-down strategy aimed at teacher trainees. The three-pronged approach where class-room training, content consumption through mobile tablets/ app as well as practice teaching in the classroom are combined together to form a comprehensive program.

Our Vision is to create culturally situated classrooms across the world. The first aspect pertains to how the school fits in with the larger community. The second aspect pertains to the culture of learning within the walls of the school.

With this vision, we intend to:

• Extend RiVER pedagogy to include pre-primary, Upper Primary and children with learning disabilities - Develop Teaching Learning Material (TLM) 
• Training of Teacher Trainees for Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
• Develop a mobile platform to complement our pedagogy
• Field Test the pedagogy in government as well as RiVER rural schools

RiVERs MGML Dissemination Model (RiVER MDM, developed in collaboration with Michael and Susan Dell Foundation) is based on training and building the capacity of a core group of teachers who then train the larger teacher community. 

In addition, RiVER MDM considers other stakeholders who are key actors in any education project/ endeavour. These include, Curriculum experts and developers, Master Coaches as well as Education Administrators at the village, district and state level etc.

Through extensive pedagogy assistance, training and on-job-support & classroom monitoring by RiVER in initial stages, the model sustains itself even after RiVER has exited.

20 million + children are learning using the RiVER MGML pedagogy, across 900,00+ rural schools with 320,000+ teachers trained on the pedagogy in 16 states in India.

In addition, children in countries such as Germany, Nepal, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sri Lanka are also being taught using the RiVER MGML pedagogy

In the next 12 months, we expect approx. 1450 rural schools in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India comprising approx. 3000 teachers and 180,000 children will be impacted by the RiVER MGML pedagogy and capacity building program.

RiVER is in discussion with UNICEF to jointly implement our pedagogy in four other states in India, namely Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Telengana, in the next 1-3 years.

In addition, we expect to begin projects in Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone where RiVERs will work in an advisory capacity, focused on curriculum development and content creation

RiVER team comprises people with skills in:

a) Curriculum Development and Textbook Integration through Designers' Workshops

b) Teacher Training and Capacity Building through development of Training modules, Resource Packs, Teacher Handbooks & Manuals

c) Field Operations - Setting up Demo/ Model Schools and initiating Class-room processes; Monitoring & Support Supervision; Assist in Scale Roll out of the RiVER MGML pedagogy 

e) Project & Program Management

f) Planning and Strategy formulation/ execution

g) Administration and Operations Support

We believe that these skills will allow us to attract resources (both human and financial) to execute your short, medium and long-term plans

Being part of Krishnamurti Foundation India (KFI) which runs the RiVER program, allows us access to funds from KFI.

We also get grants and donations from several private and government/ semi-government entities.

Finally, engagements with state governments, also provides us with revenue

We intend to engage with other state governments both within India and abroad which will provide us with a corpus, to be used for sustaining and expanding our operations.

Our collaboration and very close links with universities in India and abroad will also help us in refining and strategy and business model as we expand our operations

RiVER has, over the past many years, successful worked with government primary schools in India and abroad. Our collaboration with UNICEF and various state governments is testimony to that fact. We are confident that our new endeavours will bring direct benefits as we aim to cover an even larger number of children and teachers. This grant will provide us the opportunity to extend our pedagogy and make it more holistic. Additionally, this grant will allow us to leverage low-cost technology within the classroom.

One of the biggest challenges that RiVER faces is the ability scale our operations. With access to a grant from SOLVE, we can work on a number of new initiatives which will help us scale.

In addition, the prospect of collaboration and networking as well as access to technology know-how under the aegis of SOLVE, will go a long way in refining our curriculum for different contexts and regions.