Clients


Organisational Profile 2010  


Fabindia Schools, Rajasthan
June, 2009
Curriculum for Pre Primary Feeder Schools



Absolute Return for Kids (UK)
Develop a course on leadership of school heads in various government and non-government sectors

Asha for Education           
November, 2008 – March 2009
Starting and running a community based support centre for children admitted to private schools using RTI

Deepalaya           
December, 2008 – Ongoing
School Improvement in 5 Deepalaya schools

Navjyoti India Foundation           
August, 2008 – Ongoing
Research on Impact of the Education Program in Bawana & Enrichment of Navjyoti and related Government partners’ provisions for education. Outreach over 3000 children, 48 teachers and 10 supervisors

Vidya Bridge
August 2008 – November 2008
Education Audit and Quality Improvement

 Salaam Balak Trust
April 2008 – Ongoing
Education Audit and Quality Improvement
April 2008
Workshop on pedagogic strategies and customising curriculum in the classroom
January 2008
Appraisal of teaching team, creation of an annual monitoring and mentoring mechanism

Chintan, New Delhi           
December 2004 – June 2008
Evaluation, redesign and evolution of an Education Program for child waste managers to ensure education options and better access to mainstream civic facilities. Training and mentoring of a team and system that will continuously self-evaluate and innovate to adapt to emerging needs of the target population.
20 April, 2006 – 10 July, 2006
Manual on creation on education systems to mainstream children from the rag pickers’ community
April 2005 – June 2005
Advice on the pedagogic fitness of a manual on waste awareness for schools across India written, tested and published by Chintan.
Feb 2006 – May, 2006
Organisational visioning
Training on LFA
Facilitation of organisational change and systems


Youthreach
June 15, 2007 – July, 2008
Creation of an age-free and context-free English fluency program in consultation with 7 NGO partners including Salaam Baalak Trust, Manzil, Vidya, Vidya and Child, Don Bosco, SNS Foundation, Sankalp
March 2007 – June 2007
Pedagogic evaluation of eight NGO partners to launch an action research project that will aim to create a relevant spoken English curriculum

Growth for All           
June 2008
Qualitative research on the education needs of the Savda Ghevra JJ Resettlement Colony

Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust           
May 2008
Evaluation of the quality of the Amar Jyoti Inclusive School

Butterflies
Programme with Street and Working Children           
April-May 2008
Needs assessment for vocational education for adolescent beneficiaries
March 2008
Evaluation of the Food for Education Program

Pratham Delhi Education Initiative, New Delhi           
15 June – 21 February 2008
Head, School Support Program
Lead a team of 22 to facilitate lasting change in the quality of 20 schools run by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.
Identification and evaluation of variables that affect quality



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Woodapple, India
July, 2007 – September 15, 2007
Manager, Health and Spiritual Channel
www.copperwiki.org
May, 2007 – July, 2007
Content creation on Spirituality, Meditation & Psychotherapy
www.iwoodapple.com

Hope Project Charitable Trust, New Delhi           
December 2004 – December 2007
Pedagogic Direction of Education Department of Project Leadership and Mentoring of Education Staff (35 people), Curriculum Design.
August 2003 - November 2004
Education Audit
Institution Building
Curriculum Enhancement
Teacher Training


Save the Children, UK & Kargil Development Project, Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir
27 March, 2006 - 20 April, 2006
Creation, systemisation of documentation systems of work 1988 – present. Training to maintain the same
Training on LFA
Creation of an organisational brochure
23 February, 2006 - 10 March, 2006
Assistance in completion of a EU Block Grant Proposal which was subsequently awarded
Save the Children, Spain           
April 2004 - November 2004
Pedagogic Direction of Project
Facilitation of 280 sessions on Multiculturalism and Peace with 91 children and 20 adults
Pedagogic Advisor on Documentary for Film on the Project

Min. of Environment and Forests, Government of India, GTZ-ASME and Centre for Media Studies           
Facilitation of a Country-Wide Children’s Summit on World Environment Day with 100 children

International Deaf Children’s Society (U.K)           
7 December 2004 - 14 January 2004
Pedagogic Advice on the PRA for Needs Assessment, Training and directing a team of 10 from the Association of People with Disability, Bangalore, to complete a needs assessment for deaf children and present a project proposal to International Deaf Children’s Society. 

Fabindia School, Rajasthan           
September 2002 - August 2004
Education Audit
School Improvement
Curriculum Enhancement
Pedagogic Support

CREATE, Uttar-Pradesh           
April 2004 - August 2005
Project Documentation
August 2004
Facilitation of workshop on participation with government teachers running schools for child workers
March 2004
Facilitation of State Level Children’s Parliament

International Labour Organisation, New Delhi; Government of India (Madhya Pradesh)           
April 2004 - September 2004
Workshop Documentation for consultative workshops held via the Government of India and the International Labour Organisation throughout the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Wildlife Trust of India           
September 2003 - December 2003
Curriculum Creation and Testing

Mobile Crèches, New Delhi           
August 2003
Capacity Building

CASP Plan           
April 2003
Pedagogic Direction for Children’s Creativity Workshop
March 2003
Curriculum Assessment
February 2003
Appreciative Inquiry

CARE India           
May 2002
Annual Report on Girls Education Project in the State of Uttar Pradesh. 

Schoolnet India Ltd.           
December1998 - January 2002
Curriculum Development
Project Management           
Teacher Training
Pedagogic Advisor on Education Portal

Non- Governmental Organisations           
1997 - 1999
Focussed Group Research

Avehi-Abacus, Mumbai           
1996 -1998
Curriculum Development, Facilitation

Graduate-level dissertation, New Delhi           
1993 - 1994
Research on Autism, Training in Option Therapy

Jan Madhyam, New Delhi
1992 - 1993
Research Assistance, Documentation

YOUTHREACH
Step 1:
Details of the intent of the Project and the internal preparation to be done by the partner prior to the first meeting with LearningInq, was sent in a mail to the partner organisations. The mail was prepared by LearningInq and sent out by Youth Reach.
Learning & Recommendations for Phase II:
*The person from the organisation in communication with Youth Reach could be a person of enhanced authority, who was uninvolved in the routine functioning of the organisation. While this person could be the recipient of communiqué from Youth Reach and in sync with the objectives of the intervention, communication flows between the team implementing the project may be broken or even flawed.
*While selecting the people with whom to build consensus on the process of implementation, it is critical to choose across the board, thus facilitating the smooth and sustainable execution of the project.

Step 2:
LearningInq advised Youth Reach that preliminary conversations with all partners was required before the first meeting with LearningInq to ensure that the mail was read, understood and the instructions in it were followed. It followed that LearningInq volunteered to do four of these calls because miscommunication led to confusion and time loss in some meetings. The rest were done by Youth Reach.
Learning & Recommendations for Phase II:
*The process whereby an organisation prepares for a meeting needs to be counted as the first step in ensuring that the meeting is a success. The objectives of the meeting with LearningInq had to be facilitated with the contact person of the organisation by Youth Reach prior to the meeting, so that s/he could ensure that the participating team was adequately prepared for the meeting. It was discovered that this was not a task that was within Youth Reach’s skill range and required the interventions of a pedagogue. Thus, LearningInq volunteered time to assist Youth Reach on how to ensure that partner organisations came with homework for the meeting with LearningInq. To ensure that there were no delays in the roll-out of Phase I, LearningInq made four of these calls before handing over.
*In Phase II, the support in terms of facilitation, follow up, mentoring and mobilisation that is required will need to be better detailed. Additionally, just as a timeline and sequence of events and responsibilities are detailed between LearningInq and Youth Reach, it will be helpful to have a tripartite arrangement that includes each of the partner organisations.

Step 3: LearningInq studied the curriculum and support materials collected by Youth Reach as well as best practices available to it through secondary research and experience. The materials originate from Vidya and Child, Akanksha, BBC, Hero Mind Mine, Global Education Foundation, Lotus, British Council, Azim Premji Foundation, The Hope Project Charitable Trust and Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning. In addition, (during Step 4) LearningInq made a cursory review of the curricula followed by each of the eight partner organisations.
Learning & Recommendations for Phase II:
*Each of the above curricula is well-designed for the target group it serves. In being so, it is effective and is sure to be successful in those specific contexts. For the same reason, they will be an invaluable source of inspiration and excellent supplements to curricular processes in the partner organisations participating in the project, but unlikely to be adequate.
*There is a need to create capacity within the partner organisations to create curricula which is customised to the needs of its own particular client group. This will ensure that even when the client group evolves or when the organisation evolves/expands, it has the capacity to create and implement innovative curricula at its disposal, thus continuing to meet the expectations of its client group.
*There is a need to analyse the curriculum currently followed by the partner agencies, deconstruct it and organise it to identify gaps in the content and sequence of the concepts it uses and the resources it employs to reinforce it; so that gaps can be filled with existing materials, saving precious development time.
*None of the above curricula is comprehensive. The McRel curriculum standards provide a comprehensive guideline for curriculum construction but lack in content and resources. The curriculum followed by each organisation meets some of the objectives that it aims for. The resources available from the miscellaneous Language courses provide materials to reinforce some of the content.
*Using the McRel curriculum as a baseline for a comprehensive concept line, each of the curricula available can be deconstructed and its parts used to consolidate a comprehensive curriculum. The extent to which the concept line
[i] is utilised (length) and the extent to which resources are used to reinforce the separate concepts (breadth) will differ amongst partners and will lead to a customised curriculum for each of them that meets the specific needs of each of their client groups. A linguist is asked to look over the concept line once it is developed.

Step 4: LearningInq represented Youth Reach in a meeting with each of the partner organisations in order to clarify the expectations from Youth Reach and the partner organisation about the design of the Project. The specific objectives of the meetings were as follows:
(1) To identify the successes and shortcomings of the English curriculum that is currently being followed in the partner organisation, in trying to deliver the Outcomes listed above.
Materials requested: A copy of all materials used to deliver the content.
(2) To identify the ideal Outcomes of the curriculum that is being developed by Youth Reach by way of an interview with some of the students who feel there is a gap between what they have been equipped with by the organisation and what is required for them to meet their career objectives.
(3) To appreciate the outcomes of an ideal English curriculum by interviewing the teachers of English, the visionaries and main implementers of the organisation's activities in the area of teaching English. To ensure that there is a consensus amongst the participating members of the partner’s team that there in fact a gap between what the English curricula delivers and what it should, and that there is no internal capacity to compensate for this gap without Youth Reach’s intervention.
(4) To help the partner organisation understand the reason for them being selected for the pilot (or not), the resources that they will bring to the Project in terms of time, human resources, intellectual property and organisational participation; as well as the investments that Youth Reach will make to the Project.
Learning & Recommendations for Phase II:
*Some of the partner organisations are at different stages of developing/refining their English curriculum. Some of them do not face a deadlock and as LearningInq discovered, have hitherto unacknowledged talent and resources that can be used to heighten the effectiveness of their English curriculum without Youth Reach’s intervention. Some partner agencies need to make substantial organisational/administrative alterations without which their participation in the pilot project would be incomplete, but during which they are unlikely to have the energies required to commit to the process required of them for the intervention.
*Youth Reach needs to select criteria based on which it chooses the partner agencies that it invests in during the pilot stage of the program. Each has its own difficulties/challenges and opportunities/benefits in terms of the successful implementation of the pilot. It is critical to note that the pilot project is to last ten months, to start in June 2007 and to end in March 2008.
*LearningInq suggests that the pilot include only those partner agencies that are more or less at the same stage of developing their English curriculum, so that the main variables tested is context and client group. These organisations have not been discussed in the table below.
[i] A sequence of concepts that comprise a subject of study.

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