Minutes by Manoj and Anirban, with inputs from Ranjani.
The following volunteers were present at the meeting: Sridhar, Ranjani, Santanu, Amit, Pragati, Maya, Manoj, Anirban, Uday, Shankar, Rajesh, Kumar, Amrish and Vinay.
Summary:Ranjani made a presentation on the "Alternatives in Education Conference" and the "Learning Network Initiative" that is currently taking shape. The presentation was followed by a question-answer session. Minutes taken by Manoj.
From Asha's experience working with many groups over the last few years emerged an increasing awareness of alternatives to the mainstream system of education. There were wide ranging initiatives in this area by manu different groups in India. The learning network is envisaged as a forum that will enable many of these groups to come in contact with each other, faciliate discussion and exchange of ideas and methodologies.
As a starting point, a conference was organized by Asha, in Bangalore, from January 11 to January 13, 2003. The conference was spread over three days and had presentations from about 15 groups regarding their philosophies and methodologies followed by an exhibition by these groups of the methodologies. The conference website has details about the conference, including the various presentations made there. Ranjani mentioned that a CD-ROM with the complete video recording of the presentations is now available.
The focus of the various groups involved in the conference can be classified into mainly three categories: (1) Alternative educational systems (2) Community involvement in education, and (3) Working with the government schools.
Ranjani talked about a few of the groups: Anugriha and Gram Mangal (category 1), Bharathi trust (category 2), Avehi Abacus and Akshara (category 3).
Though this conference was organized by Asha, the role for Asha in this initiative would be that of a facilitator. The roadmap of the network would be to first find a name (suggestions are welcome), get a permanent webspace (currently there is a conference website), have regular newsletters, and to create a virtual resource center. Two workshops are being organized in April/May 2003 on arts & crafts training for teachers from the different initiatives.
If anyone is interested in joining learning network effort, please join the mailing list asha-learning@yahoogroups.com and/or visit the above website.
A related resource for those interested is the magazine Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, and other resources at great-ideas.org.
DiscussionShankar: How fair is it that these groups should be trying experimental education systems on children?
Ranjani: These are not totally new experimental systems- there's a lot of literature on many of these methods. The new systems are not completely arbitrary; there are many desirable features as underlying common themes- like, not having excessive pressure on children to learn or perform well, providing education which is meaningful and relevant in the context of the child, or involving the local community. Usually the groups go for these methods because they find the existing system ineffective. Often the alternatives are not drastic experiments, but small innovations by the teachers. Often they do provide the children the opportunity to join the mainstream school system at a later stage, if they so choose. To better understand these experiments we could watch the conference proceedings on video.
Anirban: Are there any metrics to evaluate success of these initiatives?
Ranjani: The conference did not focus on evaluating the success of these initiatives so far. Many of the initiatives are relatively new and metrics may not be available yet. An exception is Gram Mangal, which has been running for about 20 years now. (It provides education for rural and tribal children, and has initiatives to develop standards for early childhood education.)
Kumar: How useful is a virtual resource center? Can the groups who are supposed to benefit from this resource center really access the online information?
Ranjani: Most of the NGOs do have access to the internet. The students of course do not always have such access. But the online resource center is a beginning. It is an effective way to get started as it gets help from many virtual volunteers (like myself).
Shankar: Are the various NGOs really curious to know what other groups do? I think it is difficult to get NGOs to accept each other's ideas and work together.
Ranjani: There was a great deal of free exchange of ideas in the conference. The conference was "pretty organic." There was no single agenda being pushed, though some groups were more vocal than the others. The feedback from the NGOs suggests that they were encouraged to see other groups working in similar initiatives. But we cannot expect them to start accepting each other's ideas or philosophies any time soon. For instance, Auroville has a philosophy "Awaken the Divine in you," and another group may have little to do with such an outlook. The teaching methodologies also might differ from NGO to NGO. But they might all still benefit from sending their teachers to a workshop, like the ones we are planning to hold.
Kumar: Can you tell us about the funding for the arts & crafts teacher training workshops?
Ranjani: The funding is provided by Asha Seattle. The cost for the workshops is about $750. The teachers' travel expenses are not provided for. The accomodation and food for the three days of workshop and the cost of the venue itself are included in this.
Uday: What is the incentive for the teachers to come?
Ranjani: It is a learning opportunity for them. Many teachers really want to participate and benefit from the workshops.
Shankar: Is this limited to NGOs which have a prior connection with Asha? If so, why?
Ranjani: Though there is no formal restriction to Asha projects, currently most of the NGOs involved are funded by different Asha chapters. But there are also a few NGOs which came through referrals. We plan to build on the network and extend it to more projects later. There are a good number of Asha projects that could benefit from these workshops and so, it might be a good place to start.
Shankar: In the conventional education system arts is not given due emphasis. I believe the alternative edcuation systems address this. Could you give us some examples?
Ranjani: It is true that the alternative edcuation systems have an emphasis on arts. One of the groups in the conference was represented by students who presented a skit, wearing masks they built themselves. n some projects, students create learning/teaching aids; this serves as training in crafts.
Ranjani concluded the discussion with an appeal for volunteers for the learning network initiative. Some of the immediate tasks are:
At this point Ranjani's baby started crying loud, and the session was brought to an end as she had to rush out!
A discussion on the above topic was led by Manoj. Minutes taken by Anirban.
Manoj listed a few questions which he wanted to see addressed:
The discussion that followed attempted to answer the above questions and is summarised below.
On project monitoring:
Manoj suggested that our project monitoring should be open enough so that not only the project steward and perhaps a few volunteers are satisfied with the project, but all donors and prospective donors are satisfied too. This involves putting up a lot more information on the web, but may help to increase our credibility and may attract more donors. He also felt that viewing the monitoring process as enabling donors to monitor the project may address Qstn. 2 above.
It was argued that having more information online will make our monitoring more robust because potentially more people will be able to verify the information provided to us by the NGOs.
While some people agreed with the idea, others felt that the information should be made available on request, but it should not be put up on the web. This can be unfair to the NGOs who may want more privacy. Also information overload can detract prospective donors.
It was agreed that the initial project questionnaire and question and answers (project related questions asked by us to the NGO and their answers to these questions) should be put up on the web.
The newly formed Diaries was pointed out as a way to keep the rest of the chapter abreast of the developments in a project. It was noted that earlier much of the correspondence with a project remained private to the steward.
A decision on whether we should put up financials of NGOs on our website was not reached (presently we don't put up this information). It was suggested that when we approach a new project, we could make this a pre-condition. But one opinion was that this is probably an unnecessary condition which makes life difficult for the NGOs. Sridhar said that he will ask Khajurdaha Nabankur United Club if they are willing to have their financials put up online.
On site visit guidelines:
A set of guidelines for conducting and reporting site-visits needs to be developed. The following points can serve as a starting point.
It was suggested that we need to develop a working draft on monitoring policies and guidelines. Manoj is tentatively in charge of this. If there is interest we could share our guidelines with other chapters.
Sridhar told the meeting that he has recently received a proposal from Khajurdaha Nabankur United Club (KNUC), for supporting street children at the Bardhaman railway station, West Bengal. This project was supported by GOAL, The Netherlands between 1999 and 2002 and KNUC has been asked by GOAL to look for alternative support. Sridhar pointed out that we have not been directly involved with the Special Children project by KNUC so far.
It was decided to review this proposal at Asha Princeton this Thursday over a telephone conference. Depending on the decision by the projects focus group, we may submit it for WAH2003.