Written by Anil Swarup

It was 2017. I had taken over as Secretary, School Education, Government of India a few months ago. I was on a visit to a Government primary school in Haryana. The sight was an incredible one. This was not a typical set of children in a school. They were neither of similar age nor in school uniform but appeared extremely keen and eager. A couple of adults in the room were also not the usual teachers as I walked into the room along with Snorre Westgaard and B R Sinha, who were tasked to manage the work of Humana People to People in India. I was subsequently informed that these were out-of-school children (OOSC). An attempt was now being made to mainstream them. Each child in the room had dropped out and each had a different reason for doing so.

In 2005, Humana People to People India decided to address the plight of the OOSC, especially the children living in slums in urban and semi-urban areas. The project was coined Academies for Working Children and varied from handful of children seated on a dhurrie (mat) to proper classrooms in rented buildings. From 2005 to 2015, around 15,000 children benefited from these “academies”. While around 50% of the children were mainstream in government primary schools at some time during their education, the project was “independent” of governmental support and was dependent on full funding from private sources, which limited the scale of the programme.

With the Right to Education Act in 2010, an idea emerged for developing a pedagogical and operational model that was aligned with the RTE Act and the specific MHRD programme for OOSC under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Attempt now was to develop a strategy based on public-private partnership (PPP). From around 2013 to 2015, the teaching learning materials, tools and models were developed and designed, and piloted at a very small scale in different CSR funded projects.

The first larger programme with 2,000 children was implemented in cooperation with Bharti Foundation and RSK Madhya Pradesh in the session 2015-2016 in two of the State’s tribal districts, Bharwani and Jhabua. After the initial success in Madhya Pradesh, in July 2016 an agreement was signed with Educate a Child – a programme under the Education Above All Foundation, for mainstreaming 30,000 children in Haryana over a period of 3 years. In October, the same year, an MOU was signed with the State Project Office of the Department of School Education (DeSE) in Haryana. The Department committed to pay for the Kadam teachers (Education Volunteers) and the printing of the Kadam toolkits for each child. These contributions by the State took off in the second year of the project. By July 2019, the project had enrolled over 40,000 children and successfully mainstreamed over 34,000 children, after closing their learning gaps. An assessment of the mainstreamed children showed that over 90% stayed in school, and performed on average at par with the other children. Based on the success of the programme, the MOU between HPPI and Haryana was extended for another three years. During the last session 2020/21, the Kadam Centres were conducted in small groups near the children’s home observing Covid-19 appropriate behaviour. In this way, 16,798 OOSC received bridge education despite schools being closed. In total, from 2016 to July 2021, the Kadam Project has worked with 84,524 children, whereof 59,252 have been successfully mainstreamed into the age-appropriate grades.

It is worth noting that while HPPI started with over 200 employees in the Kadam Project Haryana in 2016, this has under the extended I MOU been reduced to 11. Most of the work is done by the Education Volunteers deployed by the State Project Office guided and monitored by State Officers on School, Cluster, Block and District level. HPPI provides support through these structures. The Kadam Haryana Project is a good example on a sustainable model for PPP between the government and civil society.

In 2017 and 2018, the regional workshop organized by Ministry of Education, enabled HPPI to present the Kadam model at 4 of the 5 regional workshops and discuss extensively with States. This gave a boost to the PPP model and resulted in MOUs with Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. A model for bridge education was also developed under the name Kadam+. This approach for remedial learning and bridge education for in-school children has reached out to 78,357 children in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

The children spend 70% of their time on working in groups of three – Trios, doing exercises that are directly linked to NCERT defined learning competencies. In all, the programme is significantly based on 540 competencies and 10 steps, across 5 grades and 4 subjects. The competencies and the corresponding exercises are organised in a logically progressive manner so that the children learn by constructing new knowledge based on the previous one, and moving at their own pace through the desired competencies and the steps.

A baseline assessment determines the entry step for the children, and their age determines the end goal for the exit step. Each child has an assessment card called TMP card – Tracking My Progress Card, so the progress is visible for the child. For 30% of the remaining time, the teacher leads the programme by engaging children in activities under monthly themes. Once a month the parents are invited for Parent Teacher meeting. Engagements with parents is an important component of the programme.

Identification of OOSC is where it all begins. It is perhaps the most difficult part as well. Areas with a number of OOSC is identified in the catchment area of the GPS in that area is defined. The Kadam teacher starts with a door-to-door household survey mapping all OOSC in the catchment area of the school. The teacher mobilizes the children and the parents to enroll. The school allocates a class-room, a veranda or a corridor for the Kadam Centre. The Centre ideally runs for 11 months, but often only 6-9 months as per the State’s allocation of Kadam teachers. The GPS is involved in the programme, the Head Teacher supervises and supports the Kadam teacher and the activities. The Kadam Teachers are organised in groups of 10, who meet weekly and share experiences and collect data for the online MIS. Once a month a bigger meeting with all Kadam Teachers in a district is organized. An HPPI District Coordinator leads the operation in a District in cooperation with the District Project Office for SSA.

The Covid-19 pandemic brought a new challenge to the school-going children of India – how to learn when schools are closed. Why children from families with sufficient resources could move the learning online, millions of children do not have access to technology. The Kadam methodology has proven a good solution for these children as the simple workbooks and logical step system of learning is ideal for self-learning and peer-learning. So while the schools are closed the children can continue learning together with their peers in smaller groups with the teacher visit 2-3 times per week to check up on the work, provide explanations and instructions for further work.

OOSC continues to be one of the major challenges that beset school education in the country. This aspect has been recognised in the National Education Policy 2020 as well. NGOs like Humana People to People India demonstrate that issues relating to OOSC can be addressed substantially through public-private partnerships. They made it happen on account of visionary leadership of persons like Snorre Westgaard and B R Sinha and the practical approach they adopted on the ground.

Anil Swarup has served as the head of the Project Monitoring Group, which is currently under the Prime Minister’s Office. He has also served as Secretary, Ministry of Coal and Secretary, Ministry of School Education.

This article first appeared on September 7, 2021, on thedailyguardian.com.