JAN PAHAL PROJECT

Jan Pahal PROJECT

COVERAGE

57,000 Children (6-14 years)
574 Government Schools (grade I-VIII)
44,125 Households
204 Habitations
114 Gram Panchayats
1 Block
1 District
1 State

In November 2022, we brought our education intervention to Pondiuproda block of Korba district in Chhattisgarh, which is one of the 115 aspirational districts of India. There is an urgent need to improve enrolment and learning outcomes, as more than 41% of Korba population lives below the poverty line. Pondiuproda is forested, 100 percent rural, and inhabited by many primitive tribes (72.94% tribal population). During the pandemic school closures, children were left out of learning as most of them are first-generation learners who neither received learning support at home nor took private tuitions. Moreover, the halt of mid-day meals pushed many children into labour due to food insecurity.

Korba

Chhattisgarh

Project Jan Pahal is funded by the Rural India Supporting Trust (RIST) at The Hans Foundation.

Goal

Overall development among children to lead a successful and dignified life through equitable and quality school education

Objectives

Reduction in the dropout rate among school going children of ages 6-14 years

Address children’s learning deficit and bring them towards self-directed learning

Improve management of schools through strengthening School Management Committees and gram panchayats, and creating schooling for all, a norm in the community

Strategy

Jan Pahal addresses three critical aspects of education – Access, Learning, and Governance – simultaneously and at scale. The aim is to ensure every 6-14 year old child is in school and on track to school completion till grade 8, address the issue of foundational learning deficit among first generation learners, create an effective learning environment in school, and strengthen school governance.

The program’s strategy is to cover the entire block and hire 90% staff locally from the gram panchayats. In the first stage, we will undertake discussions with children, parents, teachers to understand their aspirations and challenges; conduct awareness campaigns; activate School Management Committees (SMCs); set up community wide child rights forums; and liaise with panchayats and block administration.

In the second stage, regular training will be conducted with all stakeholders to optimise their functioning. Parallelly, we will open residential and non-residential bridge centres to address the learning deficits of out-of-school children and mainstream them back to schools. We will partner with government schools to run our foundational learning intervention.

In the mature stage, the ownership of the program will be transferred to the stakeholders. The SMCs will prepare effective school development plans. Grade 1 and 2 government teachers will be trained in our learning strategies. Panchayats, together with community and SMC members, will maintain the child labour free status of their area.