At Akshara every programme has a definitive goal, a vision built in at the design stage, of children learning better and acquiring the foundational skills for academic progress. Our Research and Evaluation team enters the picture to gauge how programmes perform and whether end results have met the expectations on which they were founded. Data, children's test scores, classroom observations, teachers' feedback and field notes pass through fine scrutiny to convert into research papers on programmes and their effectiveness. It is stepping back and taking an objective, open-minded look at learning strategies, establishing successes, while pointing to shortfalls and areas for improvement.
Behind the scenes are the quiet, back-room labours that support programmes - training, developing content and formulating assessment tools. The team plays a significant part in the nationwide canvas of ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) every year, anchoring its surveys, enquiries and learning assessments in Karnataka.
Larger engagements such as advocacy, a push for reform in education, status reports to government with analysis and direction-markers, position papers, presentations and dissertations, are all work-in-progress for the Research and Evaluation team.
Keonjhar Pilot Report
Much like building schools and playgrounds, teachers and students, curriculum, pedagogy and teacher training comprising the tangible and intangible aspects of education, the development of digital infrastructure and architecture for education needs to be viewed in the same way. The Blended Learning Project provides the device - a smartphone pre-loaded with maths content (Building Blocks games in Odia) to children and tracks their learning through worksheets. The baseline and endline results show that most of the students have benefitted from the intervention.
Gram Panchayat Contest (Odisha)
The Gram Panchayat Maths Contest is a first-of-its-kind community initiative in India to encourage all concerned stakeholders to push for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning of mathematics, across the education system. These Contests are an independent, transparent, out-of-school, curriculum-linked evaluation of children's current maths learning levels. For the first time in Odisha, between February 2, 2023 and March 26, 2023 Akshara Foundation facilitated the conduct of maths contests for children in grades 4-6. Across 115 Gram Panchayats in the districts of Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj. More than 10,600 children participated in these Contests.
Gram Panchayat Contest (Karnataka)
The Gram Panchayat Maths Contest is a first-of-its-kind community initiative in India to encourage all concerned stakeholders to push for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning of mathematics, across the education system. These Contests are an independent, transparent, out-of-school, curriculum-linked evaluation of children's current maths learning levels. Between November 22, 2022 and March 10, 2023 Akshara Foundation facilitated the conduct of maths contests for children in grades 4-6 across 2,625 Gram Panchayats in Karnataka. Around 3,12,550 children participated in these Contests. The question papers were designed with help from District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETS) and derived from the State's Kalika Chetarike programme.
EdTech Tulna Evaluation Report on Building Blocks (Grades 3-5)
This report is the result of a thorough and deep expert evaluation process spanning over 100 hours conducted by subject matter experts, instructional designers, user-interaction, user-experience design experts, and professionals with experience in teaching leveraging, or implementing EdTech solutions in the classroom and in field settings. The evaluation process leverages validated tools that are robust and ensure inter-rater reliability. This evaluation of Building Blocks (Grades 3-5) has been conducted along three dimensions: Content Quality, Pedagogical Alignment, and Technology & Design. Each dimension has multiple criteria and each has been rated along a three-point rating scale - ‘Exemplary’, ‘Valuable’, and ‘Potential to Improve’.
EdTech Tulna Evaluation Report on Building Blocks (Grades 1-2)
This report is the result of a thorough and deep expert evaluation process spanning over 100 hours conducted by subject matter experts, instructional designers, user-interaction, user-experience design experts, and professionals with experience in teaching leveraging, or implementing EdTech solutions in the classroom and in field settings. The evaluation process leverages validated tools that are robust and ensure inter-rater reliability. This evaluation of Building Blocks (Grades 1-2) has been conducted along three dimensions: Content Quality, Pedagogical Alignment, and Technology & Design. Each dimension has multiple criteria and each has been rated along a three-point rating scale - ‘Exemplary’, ‘Valuable’, and ‘Potential to Improve’.
Workshop on Creating a maths kit for grades 6, 7 and 8 – A Report
Due to the successful implementation of GKA 1.0 in Karnataka, Samagra Shikshana Karnataka (SSK) requested Akshara Foundationto design and develop an activity-based pedagogy and TLMs for grades 6, 7 and 8 in accordance with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and in collaboration with maths teachers/practitioners from government schools in Karnataka. This is a comprehensive report of how the workshops panned out and Outcomes, including the first draft of specs of the kit.
The Alternative Learning Project – A Report
If there’s one certainty of education the pandemic exposed in glaring contrast it is the gulf between the digital haves and have-nots. The pre-COVID gap only widened, underscoring the reality that students without digital facility are at a disadvantage, and here, rural children are more vulnerable than most others. This fact initiated many discussions at Akshara and ended up in us doing two pilots of a new paradigm – the dual-lesson plan strategy. This report on our 'Alternative Learning Project' outlines what we did, what we learnt and some of our thoughts for the future.
BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
COVID 19 has created multiple challenges for every country in the world. This pandemic can only be slowed by physical or social distancing, and we will likely have to do this for a substantial length of time. What this means is that we will have a prolonged period where we will be forced to practise preventive measures like social distancing, high levels of hygiene, masking, and other safety precautions. This will impact multiple facets of school education and it is prudent for us to think now as to how to address these issues. Until teaching children in classrooms in government primary schools resumes, the strategy has to be to engage students at home or in designated community spaces with the learning process.
PARYAYA GANITHA KALIKA YOJANE
Akshara took it upon itself in these COVID times to design and implement a blended learning model that had innovation as its centrepiece. Called Paryaya Kalika Yojane, implemented in Nanjangud Block of Mysore District in Kanranata. the pilot is a pioneering model – a combination of the digital route, math workbooks and physical access to Volunteers. The 15 Field Facilitators of the Nanjangud Pilot visited the homes of their cohorts every day in the selected villages. The Field Facilitators were a proxy for the teacher. They were trained in the pedagogy and process of the pilot.
English Programmes Report 2020
The English Programmes that Akshara Foundation designed were in response to a combination of circumstances, which include the low English immersion levels in government schools and the paucity of prerequisite strategies and resources required for teaching and learning. This report narrates Akshara Foundation’s journey with its English Programmes. It concludes that continuous and long-term capacity building of teachers coupled with appropriate teaching-learning resources, both print and digital, would have positive impact on first-generation English learners.
Impact Evaluation study – Akshara Foundation’s Building Blocks Mobile Application for Mathematics
The study included an evaluation of the Building Blocks application that has been launched by Akshara Foundation, as part of Cisco’s social responsibility initiative, to provide access to mathematics practice and learning to children from grades 1-5.
Restructuring Government Schools in Karnataka
Akshara Foundation, in collaboration with a faculty from IIT Gandhinagar with expertise in data analytics and education policy, undertook a research study on small schools and school consolidation. The study presented in this report is aimed at the issue of small schools in India and develops strategies to consolidate the existing schools to bring efficiency, provide vertical linkages, and to ensure adequate number of teachers per school and efficient distribution of infrastructural resources. The study discusses broader issues of school consolidation at the national level, with a special focus on Karnataka state, using secondary data from U-DISE and field studies by Akshara foundation at the local level.
Gram Panchayat Maths Contests for Primary School Children -2017
This report is a description of the Gram Panchayat1 (GP) Level Mathematics Contests organised for government school children across eight districts in Karnataka. It demonstrates a strategy to empower the community to take up issues on learning levels in the public school system within the framework of participatory democracy with the objective of improving the quality of schools.
The Library Program – Akshara Foundation’s Learnings, 2017
The report is about what Classroom Libraries (NCF2005 compliant) and in turn books, mean to children. It includes the work that Akshara Foundation has done in the past decade with regard to providing access to books for children of government schools in three regions- Bangalore, Mundargi ( Gadag District) and Kushtagi ( Koppal District).It also focuses on Akshara’s interventions in the field, and the learning outcomes as a result of these libraries. Results show that children have shown positive gains in reading levels as far as the first language is concerned. The gains in second language competencies, though positive, do not appear to be very significant.The report includes a section on the positive feedback from a cross section of beneficiaries, like teachers, students and headmasters.
THE IMPACT OF AKSHARA GANITHA – A LONGITUDINAL STUDY (2016)
This report outlines the findings of a longitudinal study conducted by Akshara Foundation in Hoskote Block of Bangalore Rural district. The study employed a controlled before-and-after design to compare the effectiveness of the Akshara Ganitha program on the learning outcomes of the children, the classroom practices, and teacher behavior. Akshara Ganitha aims to ensure that the key objectives of teaching mathematics laid down by the National Curriculum Framework-2005 (NCF 2005) and the Karnataka State Curriculum Framework where achieved. The sample of two clusters was drawn from two educational blocks, Hoskote (treatment block) and Devanahalli (control block).
EVALUATION OF AKSHARA FOUNDATION STRATEGIES IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS AT PRIMARY SCHOOLS – CMDR Report
Center for Multi-disciplinary Development Research (CMDR) Dharwad took up a three-Year Longitudinal Study on the evaluation of Akshara's innovative programmes of teaching English and Mathematics at primary schools. The tools so developed are teacher and student friendly intervention to examine the impact of the program on the learning levels of the students and also the improvement in their skills. CMDR examined the effect of the Akshara intervention in both Akshara (treatment) schools and Non Akshara (nontreatment) schools over a period of three years (2012-13 to 2014-15).
A Study of Government Urdu Primary Schools in Bengaluru, 2011
This study provides an overview of Urdu-medium primary schools in the Bengaluru Urban district of Karnataka in India. Akshara’s research examined access to government-run Urdu-medium schools and issues relating to enrolment, student attendance rates and learning achievement levels in these schools.
A study on the status of education in non-notified slums in Bangalore, 2010
Among the urban poor, the slum dwellers are the poorest. Akshara Foundation found that there are a number of children living in non notified slums and they have no access to any preschool education either through government centres or private centres. As a preliminary step in the process of setting up preschool (balwadi) centres, Akshara Foundation decided to conduct a feasibility study in Bangalore.
Assessment of Accessibility and Infrastructure Facilities In Higher Primary and High Schools – 2009
This study was carried out across 53 villages in 10 blocks most backward of Karnataka to assess the accessibility of Higher Primary Schools and High Schools in terms of distance, safety and cost, the infrastructure deficits in these institutions and to find out what percentage of children continue their higher education after completing Std. V in their local village Lower Primary School.
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