This blog aims to shed light on some of the key events that took place during and prior to 4th Education Working group meeting which led to the culmination of the education working group track under India’s G20 presidency.
What memories do you have of your summer break? Most of us made our fondest childhood memories during this time. It was a break that all children looked forward to with joyous anticipation- a time to play without care, pick up new hobbies at a summer camp, learn about new things through school assigned activities, visit new places with family and for some of us, catch up with school work and even get ahead on our syllabus. Even teachers looked forward to the same to take a break from their schedules and plan a vacation with their own children. We may also be familiar with parents being a bit hassled with the need to “engage their children productively” often with concealed plans to “cover the syllabus in advance!". Unfortunately, this may not be the reality for the majority of the students attending government schools in the country.
As per the guidelines laid down in the National Education Policy 2020, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) introduced SAFAL (Structured Assessment for Analyzing Learning Levels) - a competency-based assessment for grades 3, 5, and 8, marking a shift from conventional standardized tests to more comprehensive evaluations.
There have been sincere efforts from government as well as non-government actors, across the globe and in India, to solve the problem of low learning levels among children through programs, projects, and interventions for ‘quality education’ at the school, block, district, and state level. However, the fact that most of them have not led to any substantial, lasting or sustainable impact, visible at a state, or country level is a testament to this challenge being a ‘wicked’ one.
The CSF Education Conclave was hosted by CSF on April 11, 2023, at the India Habitat Centre, with the aim of discussing issues related to foundational literacy and numeracy under India's NIPUN Bharat mission. The event included panel discussions, conversations with experts, and had over 230 attendees from the education sector in India and globally. Discussions focused on improving foundational literacy and numeracy at the state government level, with government representatives from Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana sharing their experiences. The conclave also highlighted the role of EdTech and early childhood care and education as critical enablers of FLN.
This is the second part of a two-part series on behavioral interventions to improve parental engagement on FLN. In the first part of the blog series, we described the findings from the diagnostic research conducted by CSF and CSBC, behavioral design principles for our interventions, and the workbook intervention. This article describes the WhatsApp-based intervention and key recommendations for adopting parent behavioral interventions at scale.
On the occasion of International Day of Education, Central Square Foundation (CSF) hosted a forum to engage with experts from the education sector on key learning-outcome based reforms outlined in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This blog features key highlights from the discussion around NEP 2020' recommendation of setting up a State School Standards Authority (SSSA) to ensure all schools follow certain minimal professional and quality standards for eventual improvement of student learning.
In this blog, our team explores how they were inspired to design an intervention which involved parents and local community members in the assessment process through community-based events.
This blog is the first part of a two-part series on behavioral interventions to improve parental engagement on FLN. This article describes the findings from CSF and CSBC's diagnostic research and one of the two interventions designed to address key barriers inhibiting engagement.