User:Sam Shrivatsa/Education in India

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8.11) Non-governmental work in education

NGO work in Indian education broadly spans four areas – piloting approaches to multigrade teaching, making improvements to learning environments, teacher training and support, and creating stronger school-community links .

NGO involvement in education has been crucial in delivering targeted action to underresourced communities, such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, the urban poor, children engaged in child labor, children with disabilities, etc. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) recognized the role played by NGOs in ensuring access to education, particularly for students with disabilities. NGOs contributed to SSA by either leading advocacy movements for persons with disabilities or providing various types of assistance in rural settings for children with disabilities.

Under the SSA, NGOs also engaged in collaboration with the state to reach children excluded from mainstream education, including migrant children, child laborers, dropouts, children living in areas with civil instability and girls. There are currently 79,960 registered NGOs working in the areas of education and literacy. Partnerships under the SSA can occur through funding by Central and State governments, funding activities by identified National and State Resource Institutions or through participation in community activities of various Village Education Committees.

Grassroots education NGOs often deliver services via local governing institutions such as the Panchayati Raj and emphasize community participation in ensuring quality. The Mamidipudi Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MVF), established in 1991 to address literacy among child laborers utilized Parent Teacher Associations to disburse seed money for the program under the supervision of the village Panchayat, which then took issues of staffing shortage and insufficient infrastructure to the State Government. The Pratham Educational Initiative in Delhi and Mumbai works with the Integrated Child Development Scheme to set up and provide support to community-run pre-school centers or balwadis. Under the Namma Shaale project in Karnataka, the Azim Premji Foundation identified seven key stakeholders (children, teachers, parents, School Development and Monitoring Committees, Community Based Organizations, Gram Panchayats, and education managers) in their work to establish a framework of school-community leadership’

NGOs also work with the State to enable teacher training. There have been a number of NGO partnerships with local District Institute of Educational Training. The Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RIVER) has worked with school districts in many Indian states to provide multi-grade, multi-level training approaches catering to the needs of remote one-room schools. The Eklavya Foundation in Madhya Pradesh has been working with the State Council for Education Research and Training since 1987 to train teachers in making learning a joyful experience by emphasizing skill development and practical learning in the sciences.

NGOs have historically been associated with non-formal education (NFE) programs, both in providing alternative pedagogical approaches as well as substitutes to mainstream education. The Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, for instance, emphasizes "science and literacy for national integration and self-reliance" and uses approaches such as the Gyan Vigyan Vidyalayas to encourage long-term engagement in literacy.

Studies in NGO involvement in education have criticized the adoption of NGO models into formal schooling as low-cost options that require institutional mechanisms to avoid undermining the State's financial responsibility in providing elementary education. The cost‐effectiveness of NGO programs has yet to be determined. In studies that demonstrate that NGOs are more cost-effective in the Global South, there have been concerns raised that this is accomplished by cutting ethical corners, such as underpayment of NGO workers.