By Team | Educate Girls
The quality of education and low levels of learning continue to remain a major challenge in India. A study showed that although children are enrolled in school, they aren’t necessarily learning well.
Priyal* is an 11 year old girl from a village in Rajasthan. Both her parents are engaged in agricultural activities to earn and feed the family of 7. Being the eldest, Priyal was managing her studies along with the household chores. Gradually, the household work increased and Priyal became irregular in school which led to lower attendance and inferior learning outcomes and finally her name was listed as a “drop out”.
Educate Girls’ field staff identified Priyal as a school drop-out. Educate Girls’ Team Balika, Reena (Community Volunteer) visited her family to understand the situation better and it was observed that while Priyal’s father was quite rigid about his views on gender-role, her mother had a different concern. She said, “To sustain our family my children either have to look after the house or find odd jobs in the village. I am aware about the benefits of education and how my family can overcome poverty if my children are well educated. Priyal used to go to school but even in all these years she hasn’t learnt much. She is over 11 years old but cannot read or write. I don’t think she can study.”
After much persuasion, Priyal was re-enrolled in grade 2. It was a great opportunity for Reena to introduce Priyal with Educate Girls’ learning curriculum kits called as “Gyan Ka Pitara” (GKP)** which translates to “Repository of Knowledge”. These GKP kits are designed keeping in mind the needs of most rural and under-served children in rural India and they focus on building micro-competencies in English, Hindi & Mathematics. With the help of the GKP curriculum, Reena assisted Priyal in improving her basic concepts of numeracy and literacy.
Today, Priyal is enrolled in Grade 2 and is thrilled to be back in school with her friends! Priyal thoroughly enjoys learning the GKP activities in her class and is learning well!
*Name changed to protect identity of the minor
**Gyan Ka Pitara (GKP): Educate Girls partnered with Sol’s Assessment and Remedial Centre (Sol’s ARC), a pedagogy and child psychology expert, to develop the GKP curriculum. Curriculum is designed for 5 levels of learning (pre-literacy &levels 1-4) for children in grades 3, 4 and 5. Focus is on building micro-competencies in English, Hindi and Math
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