Summer Camp, July 2008, conducted by Pratham Bengal.

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Chalo Padhi. Read India in West Bengal. A Report
The Beginning
In June 2006, Pratham started a chapter in West Bengal with a support from
Calcutta Foundation. On a pilot basies, 25 libraries were started in 5 districts
of Darjeeling, Dakshin Dinajpur, Bakura, North 24 Parganas and Howrah. These
libraries were based in 5 villages of a gram panchayat. Each library was run by
two local youth- suggested by the Gram Pradhan under the leadership of a
district coordinator. The main aim was to build up a lead team well experienced
in bringing a change in the learning levels of the children through the help of
local community. This team would then scale up the program to the whole
district. To achieve this each of these librarians had to do two main things-
 Generate interest in the learning levels of the children in the village through by
generating and discussing a village report card on the learning and schooling
status of the all the children in the village.
 Demonstrate improvement in the learning levels by active community
participation. To do so, these libraries took a daily reading improvement class
with children who could not read. They ran a library with graded material for all
children. In the weekend, when football fever runs high in the village, several
competitions of drawing, quiz and book reading were organized for young
children. The librarians also had to talk to old people in the community and
collect popular stories and information about the local history of the village.
The library program was a huge success with some libraries having 80-100
children everyday, soon the local panchayats had to make provisions for space
and extra material.
In the district and block level West Bengal has strong elected representatives,
who head the district SSA committee along with district magistrate. Along with
the work in the field a strong advocacy was done with these people regarding
the need and ways to improve the learning levels. ASER 2005 had just been
released and it was a widely disseminated. Following all this the district
magistrate of bankura – Mr. P.K Mishra invited Pratham to participate in the
district SSA planning to draw up plans to improve learning. However soon he
was transferred to the district of North 24 parganas and included the plans in the
SSA budget of this district under the innovations.
C:SANJIBBENGALDATA AND REPORTREPORTChalo_padhi_-Feb_2008[1].doc
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Chalo padhi- A basic learning improvement program for 5-8 year old children.
From July 2007, Pratham along with the district administration of North 24 Praganas ran
a basic learning improvement in the block of sandeshkhali-II. The aim of the program
were two fold-
 Improvement in the basic learning of 5-8 year year old children to ensure that
they do not drop out due to possible lag in expected learning goals in later
classes.
 Enabling children who are out of school or attend irregularly and lag behind
academically to catch up with rests of their age.
Learning Goals of Chalo padhi
The campaign focused on developing reading fluency and basic skills in arithmetic.
Std Reading goals Arithmetic goals
STD 1 or 5 All children recognize, All children recognize numbers upto 100.
&6 year read and write all letters.
olds
STD 2 or 6-8 All children read All children recognize numbers upto 100
year olds paragraphs and can do simple addition and
subtraction.
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Location- The campaign ran in all the Gram Panchayats of Sandeshkhali –II. The block
was selected because it had the highest number of out of school children in the district
according to the recent child census conducted by the district administration
Duration-
The program was run in two phases-
Phase 1: Preparatory phase and pilot from may to October 2007
Phase2: District wise implementation from December 2007
In the preparatory phase after the selection of the block, an initial assessment of the
learning levels were done and shared with each each Panchayat Pradhan and
Panchayat members and many school teachers. Key objectives were:
Understanding context (covered 24 sansads. All GPs visited)
• Talk to panchayat pradhan about proposed campaign. Get views.
• Ask Pradhan which 3 sansads to visit
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• Visit schools/SSK in 3 sansads – understanding their situation
• Collect data on enrollment, infrastructure from school & SSk
• Understand problems of access and school functioning.
Understanding children: In each sansad, following was done
• Gather children in a place and play with them
• Talk to parents about the proposed campaign. Get their views
• Testing a sample of 30 children in each sansad in the age group 5-8 to
understand their current levels of reading and arithmetic
Launch of the program in July 2007
About 500 village volunteers chosed by the Gram Panchyats were trained during a
three days training held in each Gram Panchayat. The most important component of
the training sessions was practice classes with children. This allowed the volunteers to
practice under the guidance of the trainer, understand the difficulties of the ground as
well as observe the initial success at the ground. This was extremely valuable to
energize the volunteers to take up the campaign.
The training is conducted at regular intervals rather than at a stretch. This allowed the
volunteers to discuss their difficulties with each other and the block resource group.
Regular interaction also helped the resource group to academically support the
volunteers in relation to the actual progress made by the children in the classes. In each
of the trainings a new set of materials and activities around them was shared with the
volunteers.
Implementation teams
Block Resource- A 10 member resource team led the program implementation. This
included two members of Pratham and one member from each of the Gram
Panchayats. This team was responsible for conducting training effectively, ensuring that
timely assessments are done and lead the monitoring team at GP levels.
Gram Panchyat Resource Group: This comprised of volunteers chosen for each mauja
of the Gram Panchayats. This team was responsible for monitoring and supporting
classes during the period.
The program was reviewed regularly by District Magistrate at the district level and
Sabhapati at the block level. This was very helpful to keep it at high priority in the Gram
Panchyats.
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Materials-
A key feature of the campaign was the material packs distributed in each village. The
material consisted of teachers manual, assessment and attendance recording sheet
and material for children. Pratham provided the material for the entire block since the
tendering process of the administration was delaying the launch. Providing material at
the time of the training allowed the volunteers to practice with them under guidance. It
helped to sustain the momentum created during the training as classes could start
immediately after the training. The variety of, materials allowed the resource team to
phase the distribution of the material according to the trends of progress seen in the
ground. The arrival of new and colorful material also caused excitement among the
parents and children.
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Results of the block piloting
CHALO PADHI REPORT
NORTH 24 PARGANAS 40.0
35.0
DATA FROM OF SANDESHKHALI-II BLOCK
30.0
ARITHMETI (5-8 years) 25.0
C: Baseline
Children BASELINE MIDTEST FINALTEST 20.0 Midtest
Finaltest
who can 15.0
Percent Percent Percent
do: 10.0
Subtraction 7.2 11.1 21.7 5.0
Addition 16.1 20.4 24.8
0.0
Num recog (21-100)
16.0 25.5 26.1 Subtraction Addition Num recog (21- Num recog (1- Nothing
100) 20)
Num recog (1-20)
23.6 27.9 20.0 children who can do
Nothing 37.1 15.1 7.2
% 100% 100% 100% 35.0
30.0 baseline
READING: (5-8 years) midtest
25.0 finaltest
Children BASELINE MIDTEST FINALTEST
who can 20.0
read: Percent Percent Percent 15.0
Para 7.5 9.8 20.8 10.0
Sentence 14.8 19.5 24.3
5.0
Word 19.4 26.2 27.2
Letter 30.6 32.7 22.8 0.0
Paragraph Sentence Word Letter Nothing
Nothing 27.6 11.8 4.7 children who can read
% 100% 100% 100%
Scaling up of the program-
After the initial experiences of Read India in one block, the campaign has scaled up to
all blocks in the district of North 24 Parganas and Dakshin Dinajpur. For this the district
administrations recruited nearly 200 shiksha bandhus to effectively support and monitor
the campaign. We are also launching a pilot campaign along similar lines in districts of
Burdwan and Purulia.
Simultaneously we have also launched a similar pilot in one block of Darjeeling- Tukdah
Here the challenges are different. Within a single block the terrain is difficult to easily
move around; also the entire learning material kit has to be created in the local
language. The advocacy also has to be different because primary education has
recently moved under jurisdiction of Darjeeling Hill council and the Panchayats are yet
to strengthened.
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