A non-governmental organisation (NGO), Sampark Foundation, has joined hands with Punjab Government and Sarva Sishka Abhiyan (SSA) to launch Parivartan — a school transformation programme — covering 2.5 lakh school children in the state.
With its focus on large scale transformation in education, livelihood, sustainability and social entrepreneurship, the Foundation has signed a MoU with Punjab Government and SSA on Thursday. The initiative in its first phase will cover 500 primary schools in Patiala district benefiting 50,000 primary school children and will eventually expand to impact 2.50 lakh children in the state.
“Parivartan is an initiative of Sampark Foundation and Punjab SSA to ensure improved academic outcomes through holistic adoption of large number of schools and driving change through intervention in curriculum, learning outcome assessment, headmaster and teacher training,” said a spokesperson.
He added the program in Punjab will cover classes I and II in its first year, Class III in second year, Class IV in the third and Class V in fourth year. The first phase of the program, starting from July 2013 to May 2014, will be implemented in Classes I and II of all government primary schools of Patiala district supported by Punjab SSA with the aim of improving the capacities of teachers and teacher educators in mathematics teaching and learning. The program will reach out to 650 teachers and 50,000 students.
Punjab School Education Principal Secretary Anjali Bhawra said, “We are happy that Sampark Foundation has partnered with the state government to implement a new teaching methodology that promises to transform learning process in our primary schools across the state. We are confident that this program will make education an enjoyable experience for the students and lead to substantial improvement in their learning outcomes.” Sampark Foundation founder and vice chairman of HCl Technologies Vineet Nayar said, “Under this program, we will be implementing activity based and ‘play-way’ method of teaching - which will significantly transform pedagogy in primary schools. This large scale project will be funded out of Sampark’s own resources over the next five years”.
“The program will be implemented by a team consisting of Domain leaders with experience of conceptualizing and executing large scale multi-year, multi stakeholder change programs, Entrepreneurs who bring innovation, governance and large scale program management expertise, ex- bureaucrats with proven track record of implementing state-wide developmental programs and in partnership with organisations like JodoGyan who bring refreshing innovation to teaching Mathematics in schools”, said Venkatesh Malur, Director and Head — Education, Sampark Foundation.