Team Kaivalya.

Empowering Educators with Data Accessibility and initiatives to inspire Behaviour Change for enabling Improvement in learning outcomes among disadvantaged communities

Of 700+ districts in India, the Government has identified 112 Districts as the most backward, based on Human Development Index (HDI). School leaders in these districts have the unenviable task of improving Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) where resources are limited. Teachers do not have the skills and tools to utilise essential SLO data to address learning gaps and improve quality of education. As an organization we stand committed to improving student learning outcomes and transition rate in India’s most backward districts.

Context of India:-

As per ASER 2018 report 47% Std. V government school students are unable to read Std. II text. Improvement in Foundational Learning and Numeracy thus becomes the prime focus of the state through capacitating teachers and innovation.

KEFs Learning Experience:-

Our learning in aspirational districts has been primarily, understanding the trends through Assessment data in different contexts. For eg.

• Students who are regular are bound to show higher Learning outcomes, and absenteeism percentage of girls is higher as compared to boys and schools. School Processes such as Inclusive assembly, print richness in School and School Assembly result in higher student retention
• 30% of teachers and school leader’s time is consumed in managing administrative tasks.
• Assessment is a tedious and irregular process for teachers with assessments being conducted only twice a year, leaving a time lag in understanding student learning gaps.
• School leaders experience both lack of data as well as fear of data as a result of which there is a disconnect between the intervention and the need on ground.

KEFs Experimentation:-

KEF has experimented with and deployed three technology solutions along with two technology partners i.e. Pi Cards and Mindtree:

• Pi Cards App – The pilot was conducted in 3 low HDI districts in 120 schools with 3600 students. It included an half hour orientation of students and teachers on using QR cards for capturing attendance and conducting assessments on a real time basis. The QR codes displayed by students were captured through the teacher’s mobile device to display student attendance and learning outcomes within just a minute. 

• Assessment tracker app – An android-based app used to collect student assessment data of over 5 lac students and leveraging this data with school staff to implement an accelerated learning program.
• Journey app – This app was designed for tracking school improvement projects and their maturity. KEF staff used this to build school leader capacity in managing school improvement projects.

The New Solution:-

We are attempting to answer the following research questions based on our proposed solution:

• Will the simple method of data collation, analysis and usage of data through an app lead to improved efficiency of teachers, school leaders and in turn have an impact on students learning outcomes?
• How can we scale a simple human centred technology solution to impact learning outcomes?
• How can simple data be used to generate insights to address multi-faceted issues in the community?
• How can data trends be leveraged by school leaders for driving context-based interventions to promote inclusive classroom practices resulting in greater student retention?
• How can teacher skills be built to understand revealing of misconception of students from Assessment data?

The solution has a strong human centred design with the ability to empower school leaders to take independent and real time decisions based on data. The solution is designed to meet the end-to-end need of school leaders including:

Feasibility in remote regions

• Providing an easy-to-use, offline app solution which reaches the most remote parts of the country.

• A solution which empowers teachers by providing real time insights and enables them to take data-based decisions.
• An easy-to-use app in the hands of teachers which captures student responses in seconds through a simple camera scan of the classroom and helps save time within her daily routine.
• The solution is not restricted to a school context but can be leveraged by multiple stakeholders in communities to enable continuous learning extreme situations such as the pandemic
• The app will be built on an open-source Sunbird platform leading to easier integration with government owned national teacher learning platform DIKSHA which is also built on Sunbird platform leading to scalability and sustainability across the country.
• Empower teachers and middle managers through capacity building sessions leading to behaviour change.
• Drive holistic impact by enabling students, teachers, community volunteers, influential leaders, parents, district officials through constructive community action leading to systemic change.
• Opportunity to scale to 180,000 schools across 112 districts impacting 650,000 teachers and 21 million children.

Accessibility to multiple stakeholders

Sustainability

Scalability

Student Learning Outcomes can be improved through systemic change through a three pronged approach: building capabilities of middle management, creating robust governance mechanisms and constructive community action.

1. Increased capacity and capability of middle management for providing teacher support
2. Increased accountability at district, block, cluster & School level through Data Accessibility
3. Increased Community Ownership and Trust in Government Schools

Leading to

• Empowered communities playing a role in increased student enrolment, attendance and retention
• Skilled and motivated teachers resulting in improved classroom instruction and positve learning environment

Five Year Vision - Aspirational District Collaborative platform to impact 5M+ girl children and develop 20,000+ demonstration schools by facilitating convergence of 12 ministries and collaborating with 6000 collaborators across 112 Aspirational districts in India by 2026.

One Year Plan –

• Build Early Literacy and Numeracy skills for Grade 1 to Grade 5 students through 10,000 demonstration schools across 112 aspirational districts.
• Reduce student drop-out rates leading to improvement of transition rate by 5 basis points in 112 aspirational districts with high-focus on girl child

Develop and deploy the proposed mobile app solution across 5023 demonstration schools with 110,000 students and 17,500 teachers across 28 aspirational districts by building the capabilities of 2,500 middle managers and 17,500 teachers.

• Funding required to develop and deploy the mobile app solution and pilot the program across 28 aspirational districts
• COVID-19 impact may shift government priorities from education to health leading to slowing down the implementation of the solution.
• In low resource ecosystem, introducing and deploying digital solution requires a huge mindset shift at stakeholder and beneficiary level.
• Due to school lockdown, safety of team, extended collaborators i.e., community volunteers, self-help groups is critical as they would be implementing the program on ground, requiring stringent safety protocols.

• Funding required to develop and deploy the mobile app solution and pilot the program across 28 aspirational districts
• COVID-19 impact may shift government priorities from education to health leading to slowing down the implementation of the solution.
• In low resource ecosystem, introducing and deploying digital solution requires a huge mindset shift at stakeholder and beneficiary level.
  • Conducting capacity building sessions for each stakeholder including teachers, head masters, middle officials to introduce power of data and digital solutions and alleviate fear of technology
  • Building confidence by deploying solution in specific demonstration schools, measuring the impact and sharing with District Officials
• Due to school lockdown, safety of team, extended collaborators i.e. community volunteers, self-help groups is critical as they would be  implementing the program on ground and will requiring stringent safety protocols

• Exploring multiple channels of raising required funding to deploy the program.

• Aligning the solution to government programs being run remotely in the state by engaging community youth as volunteers.