Akshara Education Project (AEP) was initiated in 2001 in fifteen government schools in the villages around Madanapalle with support from Asha For Education, Seattle. The Telugu word Akshara means alphabet/ Education/ learning and it also means ‘without an end’, signifying that there is no end to learning. AEP aims to promote Quality Education in the formal school system so that it becomes more inclusive.

The focus during the past two and half years has been on Quality Education with a view to provide learning and teaching experiences that are joyful and realise the potential of the child and the teacher. Learning needs to be more child-centered activity rather than a teacher directed one. Children need more opportunities to work with their hands, talk, discuss and most importantly think for themselves. Only then they can become creative and active learners. When learning is made more meaning full to the child and the parents it automatically ensures regular attendance and continuation of the children at school.

During the year we have developed various activities and games through which children understand concepts and gain competencies. During February we had a workshop in which we listed down all the lessons from Standard One to Standard Five. For each of these lessons an activity was devised. The idea is to design a hands on activity for each lesson in the text book so that lesson can be introduced through an activity where the child takes an active part.

The four basic skills of language learning are Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. AEP tries to imbibe these competencies among children through activities like story telling and other games such as bingo, dominoes, pelmanism cards, self-correcting and non-self correcting cards. Teaching languages using such games not only attract the child’s attention but also help to pace the child’s learning according to her capabilities.

Long durable learning material such as alphabet sets in Telugu, English and Urdu were made and distributed to the schools. Alphabet sets are used for younger children to help identify letters. The older children play word games such as word building to improve their vocabulary. During the year worksheets were made and introduced to the children to assess children’s levels of learning and to help them study on their own. To improve the hand writing skills copy-writing strips were made and given to the children.

Many children and teachers have an aversion towards leaning mathematics. To make children enjoy maths the teaching needs to be interactive and hands on. So, AEP helps children pick up concepts using hands-on activity. Children use ‘Fractions Sets’ through which they understand the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractional parts. The concept of place-value is learnt by playing various dice games. Different solid geometrical shapes are made by the childern using networks printed on card. A number of card games have been developed to improve the computational skills. The medium of art and craft were used to teach mathematics. Origami the art of paper folding was used to make geometry lessons more lively and interesting.

High quality maths learning material such as geo-boards, shapes and mathematical puzzels such as tangram, Soma cube and tower of Brahma were made and given to the schools.

In a typical class of Environmental Studies the teacher would read a lesson aloud and expect children to learn (by rote) the answers to the questions that follow the lesson. AEP in contrast would like children to study the subject and understand how nature works and ones relationship to the objects and other living things around us. This is done by collecting information through observation and experimentation. Recording their observations and analyzing it will make the children scientific in their approach towards learning. Naturally they tend to enjoy this kind of learning which is activity based. AEP attaches a lot of importance to art and craft as a medium of learning.

For instance in one of the schools the lesson ‘Physical Features of India’ was done very interestingly. The whole school was involved in creating a large map outside the school. The mountain ranges were built with clay and rocks, the desert was shown with a patch of sand, the rivers were made with blue rangoli powder, the forests included a lot of branches. The significant aspect in this activity was the co-operative learning that took place. The little ones enjoyed collecting the required material while the older ones did the outlines and arranged everything in the right place. No doubt there was a lot of learning taking place all the time. Inspired by this AEP made large jigsaw puzzle maps of India with plywood and gave it the schools.

The first conference of the Leaning Network was held at Bangalore in January 2003. AEP is involved in the Learning Network from the initial stages and takes and active part in the activities. The network comprises groups working in different areas impacting the education experience of a child in school including innovative teaching/learning methodologies, differing philosophies on what education should accomplish, increasing community participation and ownership, working within government structures, creating educational resources etc. This network hopes to provide new dimensions to existing activities of its members in exploring various alternative approaches to education. This network will help address issues with the conventional system, provide new perspectives, strengthen existing individual efforts and be a resource for interested groups, educators, and parents seeking meaningful approaches to education.

As part of the Learning Network activity Shanmuga an Asha Volunteer and Ravi Aluganti of AEP traveled in Andhra Pradesh in August-Sept 2003 to learn more about alternative schools and also to identify potential partners for the network.

AEP conducted a training for the teachers of Kuvempu Trust which runs 15 ‘Vidya Kendras’, night schools for village children in Chitradurga district of Karnataka. The training was for three days on 8,9 and 10^th February. The training was to help the teachers understand the concept of Activity Based Learning (ABL) and using ABL in teaching Mathematics and Science.

AEP conducted four 3-day workshops for teachers on arts and crafts. The first workshop was conducted at Bangalore from 2 to 4^th May, 17 participants form 7 projects in Karnataka took part in this workshop. The second and third workshops were held at Chennai from 14 to 20^th May. There were 32 participants from 11 projects of Tamil Nadu. The fourth workshop was held a Timbaktu for 19 participants from 7 projects of Andhra Pradesh.

The workshop was to help teachers in learning certain art and craft skills and also to see how these activities can be used to teach other academic subjects in school. There were also discussions on the importance and need for arts and craft in schools, the history of arts and craft, what art is, how, why and when art evolved, various activities that can be introduced to

children, classroom approaches while introducing these activities, age group for introducing

activities, materials needed etc.

The activities introduced included clay work, sewing, needle work, paper work, making some simple toys and painting. The feedback from the teachers was very encouraging.

WINS a voluntary organisation working for the rehabilitation of sex works had identified 31 children who were school dropouts. WINS sought MORE’s help in equipping these children so that they can go back to school the following academic year. MORE and AEP organized a 10 day intensive residential workshop for these 31 children and 5 staff members of WINS form 9^th to 20^th May. The individual learning levels of the children were assessed. Bearing in mind the children’s school age, each child was given special attention and care so that they were able to catch up with the academic level of their class. Simultaneously the staff of WINS was trained on the follow-ups that they were required to take up once the children are enrolled in the regular school.

Topics in the regular academic subjects were introduced through the methods of ABL. The children were also were given ample opportunity for out door activities. It is very satisfying to know that all these children are doing well in school now.

AEP recently started a mobile library for twenty government schools around Madanapalle, where it has been working with the children for the past two years. The children in these schools have been learning Maths, Environmental Studies and Languages by doing various hands on activities, which also included a lot of Art and Craft.

It was found that the children were not reading any other book except their textbooks. Probably this was because they have had no access to any other printed material other than their textbooks. Reading books by many people is considered boring and out dated especially with the coming of cable TV even into small villages.

In April an Asha volunteer sent a large carton of books for Akshara Education Project. It was a very good selection of children’s books. We started to carry some of these books in a bag to the schools during the regular visits and the books were casually displayed. In the beginning children did not show much interest in the books. Gradually over a period of time to we found that some children started picking them up and reading! This was very encouraging. We started to carry more and more books. Reading also became an important activity during my visits. Many were still not interested in books, we had to help such non-readers by giving them books with lots of pictures, telling them stories and getting them to enact stories from the books and so on. This little bit of help from us was all that was required to make them love books.

Children have to experience the pleasures of reading. Reading skills will help both the children and the teachers. Reading books will help in enriching and enlightening ones learning. Sometimes they might be guided to select relevant information and material this helps the children do well in their regular studies. Reading as a skill will also help in self-learning; there is no doubt that reading builds life long skills.

And for this to happen, we had to bring children and books together successfully. The ‘little back pack library’, was transformed into a full-fledged mobile library by December 2003. Right now the library has more than two thousand books in Telugu and about hundred books in English. To get this collection we had to do a lot of research and searching in many bookshops. It was providence that there was a Book Fair at Hyderabad recently. We were able to buy most of the books from here otherwise one can imagine how much of hunting we would have had to do. The next purchase will not be so difficult; we will have to just note down the most tattered books, to know which are the well-read books.

The Mandal Education Officer officially inaugurated the Mobile Library and was very impressed with the idea and the collection of books. The Director of MORE who spoke at the inauguration of the Mobile Library said, "I have seen many libraries from municipal libraries to university libraries, the common factor is dust….. the Mobile Library will be different it will go to where the readers are". Yes, we know where the potential readers are and we need to provide them with the right kind of reading material.

Another significant aspect about the Mobile Library is that comparatively a small collection of books is circulated to many schools covering a large area and to many children. Contrary to having a library in a fixed place which is accessible to only a limited number of readers.

Functioning of the Mobile Library has now been streamlined. We have issue registers for all the schools. A particular day is fixed for each school. On a typical day the library teacher will go with the mobile library to the scheduled school by 9 am. She first meets the schoolteacher to fix up the day’s a program. The library includes two trunks of selected books, tarpaulin, audiocassettes and issue register. The tarpaulin will be spread out under a tree, verandah or in a classroom and the books are displayed on it.

Classes will be paired keeping in mind the children’s reading levels; first Class One and Two will come to the library. They will either listen to a story told by or read by the teacher. Sometimes they listen to the audiotapes while following the text in the book. After several rounds (visits) the children will be encouraged to tell stories or enact a story. Then the children are asked to browse through the books and are encouraged to read simple books. We have not yet started to issue books to children of classes One and Two. We are still skeptical about them taking care of the book for a whole week.

Next children of Class Three and Class Four will come to the library. They will first return the books issued during the previous round. Children are asked to talk about the books they have read without disclosing the climax. This encourages other children to pick up good books. Some children are guided in reading and selection of books. Books, which are graded according to the vocabulary and reading levels, are issued to the children.

Then the children of the next classes come to the library. These children apart from reading general books will also be guided in using reference books such as encyclopedia, dictionary and atlas. The children will be encouraged to write book reviews and read them out at the school assembly. Before they go back to their classes they return the books borrowed during the previous round and get new ones.

After the library session is over the books are packed into the trunk boxes and post lunch the library moves to the next school. This is the story of how a Mobile Library came into being.

Create a resource center, which is always available to the teachers, other NGOs or individuals who are serious in bringing about a qualitative change in schools. The resource center should be a learning space for children and adults. The resource center will also function as a school that provides quality education to the children of nearby villages. The school will be as a model to those who critique such initiatives. The resource center will develop and disseminate teaching-learning material.

Jayashree and Anita from Asha visited us in January. Balaraman, Stella and Vasanthi of Isaimbalam School, Pondicherry were here for two days in June. Shanmuga was here in August. Ali Asghar of COVA visited during September. Hameed Manjeshwar an Asha Fellow from Mangalore was here in October. Srinivas an Asha volunteer from Seatttle and Amit Mookerjee the coordinator of Akshara visited us during December.