Adhyayan is a capacity-building organisation dedicated to improving the quality of educational leadership and learning through leadership capacity-building, evidence-based reviews, and data-driven professional learning communities.
“The leader of the birds asked them not to lose courage. He said that if all of them made a joint effort they would be able to fly away with the net.” – Panchatantra
Thus far, it has worked with more than 7000 schools, three states and four NGO partners. Adhyayan has two legal entities – Adhyayan Quality Education Services Pvt Ltd (AQES) that works with private educational institutions in the country and the Adhyayan Quality Education Foundation (AQEF) that works with State government departments of education. The story that follows is from the Foundation’s new pilot with the Arunachal Pradesh Government for the holistic development of the school ecosystem in the region. The project is funded under Mission Shiksha, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, India. This will involve all stakeholders (students, teachers, parents and leaders) learning how to review their schools in the context of COVID-19 and actively working on plans to improve and monitor their schools.
Why East Kameng and what we have learnt
East Kameng is a district situated in the Western part of Arunachal Pradesh. The district is almost entirely mountainous with valleys and gorges at every nook and cranny. Comprising 380 villages and with a total population of 78,680 people, East Kameng‘s literacy rate stands at 49%. It is interesting to note that of the total population, 87.25% is made up of scheduled tribes of which the Bangnis and Sulungs are the major ones. https://eastkameng.nic.in/
With an area as geographically challenging and diverse as this, there are multifaceted ‘roadblocks’ and there are also opportunities. There is a real issue in the region when it comes to devices, internet bandwidth and teacher preparation which results in a complete halt in schooling during a crisis such as the pandemic. Therefore, along with quality improvement, our work in East Kameng aims to:
- Plan for any future disruptions by working closely with teachers to prepare self-learning material for students
- Source community members who are willing to step up and help the school whenever the need arises
- Encourage student leadership for peer learning opportunities
It is a great sense of partnership and support to know that the District and State are invested in this pilot project and will be monitoring it with close interest. We will also continue to share our learnings with all of you as we proceed working towards SDG 4 (Quality Education).