EDUCATION
SIGNATURE
PROGRAM >

EDUCATION SIGNATURE PROGRAM

COVERAGE

7,46,929 Children (3-16 years)
5,900 Government Schools
7,125 Anganwadis
8,87,053 Households
13,478 Habitations
636 Gram Panchayats
38 Blocks
6 Districts
3 States

For India’s vast public education system, comprising more than 1.5 million schools, 250 million children, and above 8.5 million teachers, it is indeed an enormous challenge to ensure quality school education for all children. The challenge is even more daunting in rural and indigenous areas, which continue to have scarce educational resources. The current education system leaves the emerging workforce unable to cope with the demands of a twenty-first century economy.

Odisha

West Bengal

Jharkhand

Considering the state of public schools in rural India, Aspire with funding from Tata Steel Foundation (TSF) initiated the Education Signature Program (henceforth The Program) in January 2015 in six blocks of Odisha. Between 2016 and 2021, the Program was scaled up in 12 blocks in Odisha and replicated in 18 blocks in the neighbouring states of Jharkhand and 1 block in West Bengal state.

Goal

The goal of the Program is to provide equitable and quality secondary education for all children through a revitalized public education system, enabling them to realize their full potential.

Strategy

The Program strategy is to work at scale and address three key aspects of education – Access, Learning, and Governance – simultaneously, following four guiding principles

Complete coverage of an entire administrative unit, usually a block or a district to take advantage of all the administrative linkages in the block/district and work with all actors engaged in the education system

Complete coverage of all children aged 3 to 16 to capitalize on economies of scale and ensure that no child falls behind

Hire locally from the same villages and panchayats where the project is being implemented to ensure local capacity building and a stake in the program

Community bodies and Gram Panchayats are at the forefront of the Program and all interventions are implemented after a formal resolution is passed by them

Complete coverage of all children aged 3 to 16 to capitalize on economies of scale and ensure that no child falls behind

Hire locally from the same villages and panchayats where the project is being implemented to ensure local capacity building and a stake in the program

Community bodies and Gram Panchayats are at the forefront of the Program and all interventions are implemented after a formal resolution is passed by them

Three Pillars

ACCESS

The ACCESS vertical is focused on ensuring every child is in school, participating and moving towards completion of secondary school, in the following ways

Out-of-school children are identified through community contact and household surveys and reconnected to education through bridging programs and ‘back to school’ drives
All children tracked for attendance and retention using the Village Education Registers (VERs) and voluntary community-wide child protection committees
All children supported in transition from primary to upper primary to secondary school

LEARNING

The LEARNING vertical is specially designed to:

Address the foundational learning deficit of children – their inability to read, write and do basic maths
Demonstrate an effective pedagogy and a vibrant classroom for first generation learners that ensures learning for all children
Eventually embed this pedagogy in government schools, starting with early grades, to eliminate the problem of learning deficit at its root
Incorporate transversal skills in teaching methods and content
Bridge the gap between home language and school language by focusing on adoption of technology and including local cultural practices, language and knowledge into the formal education system
Enhance the self-esteem and capacity of government school teachers, cluster resource coordinators, block resource coordinators and District Institutes of Education and Training staff

Governance

The GOVERNANCE vertical aims to build ownership of communities in the education agenda through

Empowering School Management Committees, Panchayat Raj Institutions, village committees, and the local community, especially the youth
Activating Parent Teacher Associations, Youth groups, women’s Self-Help Groups on child rights agenda, thereby raising awareness levels in the community
Training and orienting panchayats in their roles and responsibilities towards school management, India’s Right to Education framework, and child rights to ensure high performance of schools and increased budgetary spending on education