The Satya Bharti Impact
Bharti Foundation aims at consolidating the Satya Bharti School Program and strengthening processes for effective operations and management. Our students continue to the prime focus, but we also concentrate on the development of the neighborhood, the community and the society at large where our schools are located. Efforts are also made to empower the indirect beneficiaries of the program for a more wholesome positive impact.
|
|
| Delivering ‘Quality Education’ in Rural India |
The Satya Bharti School Program has consciously been implemented in rural India which faces ground challenges like lack of quality teachers, first-generation learners, poor infrastructure and vast geography. Thus, by being able to set up schools in such conditions, the program has provided a model with components of education that can easily be replicated by other organizations working in the field of education. The per child costs is kept at a minimum and at par with government costs to make it replicable.
|
|
| Reaching out to the Underprivileged |
The Satya Bharti School Program is driven to reach out to the community. Operating primarily in states with discouraging male-female ratio, the program focuses on maximum enrolment of girl children. Of the total enrolment at the Satya Bharti Schools as of September 2011, 48% of our students are girls. Contributing to the affirmative action agenda of the country, the program also caters to the marginalized sections with 76% of the students belong to the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Communities and 48% of teachers belonging to the weaker strata of society.
Special focus on the Girl Child
Bharti Foundation is specially intended to impart education to girl children who have been deprived for long, especially in the states with skewed sex ratio. Through an inbuilt strategy, this program attempts to overcome the challenges that prevent girl children from coming to school. Specially designed girl-child policy, separate toilet for girls, one female teacher in each shift and special sensitization campaigns have been put in place to encourage parents to send their daughters to school.
|
|
| Impact on Teaching-Learning |
The Satya Bharti School Program focuses on holistic, conceptual and experiential learning helping students emerge as agents of change in the society. The learning levels of students have shown significant improvement in 2010-11 with 92% children having scored in the top two brackets in learning levels, 80% students scoring in the top two brackets of holistic development and 50% children having scored above 70% marks (47% during Mid-term) in end-term exams.
|
|
| Impact on Community |
There has been an increased parent and community participation because of the various connection points that have been created by the program, such as the Community Volunteering Week, participation of parents and community members in school events, parent teacher meetings, etc.
Generation of Employment
The program has helped in generating employment opportunities in the villages where our schools are located:
 | Recruitment of local youth as teachers (some go on to become Head Teachers as well) for the Satya Bharti Schools | | Hiring of locals as school maids (didis) | | The Mid-Day Meal vendors are community members, especially mothers of students in our schools | | Local vegetable vendors, grocers etc., earn a large part of their sales through mid-day meal vendors for the Satya Bharti Schools | | Local hotels also earn money through the trainings of trainers, teachers etc. | | Students excursions involve local travel agencies earning business through such trips | | Local event organizers, decorators etc. earn from the events at the schools such as sports days, inaugurations, annual events, national events | | Local materials stationery, construction materials etc are also procured locally |
Fighting Social Issues
The Community Outreach Programs and Community Service Campaigns have helped fight social evils and issues, like child marriage, substance abuse, illiteracy, etc in villages where our schools are based. One of the greatest achievements has been the prevention of 16 child marriages due to Campaign on Child Marriage by the students of a Satya Bharti School in Jodhpur.
|
|
| Developing Children as ‘Agents of Change’ |
Bharti Foundation, aimed at ‘holistic development’ of children through a quality teaching-learning process help develops children into confident and employable individuals with a sense of responsibility towards the community. The program encourages students to evolve as change-agents in their own homes and the community at large.
|
|
| Commitment of Teachers |
The Satya Bharti School teachers display an incredible amount of commitment and dedication to the cause of ‘education for the underprivileged’. Teaching in far flung rural communities, there are examples of teachers who travel more than 25 kms by cycle to attend school everyday to teach. Our teachers have also won awards for their innovative teaching learning materials that they use for their classroom interactions. Two teachers were chosen among the Top 25 entries at the national level for the Innovative Teacher Leadership Awards 2009-10 organized by Microsoft Partners in Learning Program.
|
|
| Sharing of ‘Best Practices’ |
Bharti Foundation has emerged as a role-model in ‘education for the underprivileged’. We believe in mutual sharing of best practices of quality education with organizations, educational institutions and the state governments to create replicable, scalable and sustainable education models.
Technical Expertise
Rajasthan- After the successful implementation of the "school adoption program" of Bharti Foundation, the government has now included this model (government schools being adopted and run by corporate) as a formal option in the state government public-private partnership scheme.
Haryana- The state government has invited Bharti Foundation to contribute in designing the “School Nurturer Policy"- the public-private partnership model based on the success of our model in Rajasthan and Punjab. They have also invited us to share our learning about our evaluation process to incorporate it into their teacher evaluation programs.
Punjab- The state government has invited the teachers of the model senior secondary schools (run in PPP by Bharti Foundation) to train teachers of the other government schoolss. They are also using the question papers used by Bharti Foundation in our Teacher Subject Knowledge Tests to frame their question papers for teacher tests. Bharti Foundation is also sharing the Process Manual with the Punjab Government for best practices.
At a strategic level our representatives are member of committees like PlanningCommission steering the national education agenda and helping state governments develop their Public Private Partnership (PPP) models. Active dialogue exists with international agencies (World Bank, DFID, European Commission) and Bharti Foundation serves as a learning resource for their various education agendas.
We also invite teachers from schools run by NGOs to attend our trainings. A conscious effort has been made to showcase the program at various national and international conferences to share learning. At the ground level, teachers from surrounding schools visit our schools to understand and adopt our teaching and learning processes in their schools.
|
|
| |
| |
