Catalyst for Social Action (CSA)

About the organization

Vision – To build a nation where every vulnerable child is nurtured to become a happy and contributing member of society. 

Mission – To build capabilities of childcare and protection systems to ensure vulnerable children are provided with the appropriate care and support and guided towards their full potential.

Location

Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Goa. We are spread in 40 districts in these states. We work with over 130 institutions. More specifically, we are working with seven Child Care Institute’s (CCIs) from the Pune district for this project. They are located at Maluli Balak Asharam, Wagholi; Church of Christ, Baramati; Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, Kedgaon; Regional Probation and Aftercare Association, Baramati; Regional Probation and Aftercare Association, Sangamner; Investment In Man Trust, Phulgaon; and Shaskiy Mulinche Jr. Sr. Balgreh, Rahuri. 

 The core reason for implementing this project is to create the conditions for joyful learning. To help children with their language and numerical skills. To facilitate the capacity building of tuition teachers and program officers. This project also aims to understand the child’s academic journey at school and in tuition classes. It seeks to encourage and motivate the child to participate in various forums.

Learning

• Understanding the children’s different learning levels executed a readiness assessment in all Wipro-supported CCI’s.
• Identified the children, below school grade levels and oriented program officers and teachers to give proper attention.
• Establishing connections with schools to map academic progress. 
• Understanding tuition teachers’ challenges and helping them in all possible ways. 
• Teachers and POs capacity building is needed for smooth functioning. 
• Communication needs to be done with teachers and POs once in a month.
• Proper progress assessment needs to be done with better quality. 
• Readiness assessment guidelines need to be followed. 

Challenges 

• Continuity of the teachers in 2 CCIs. 
• Multigrade multilevel teaching-learning 
• Communication limitation between SP-Learning and schoolteacher, HMs – Identifying learning gaps in children. 
• Lack of resources for TLM, workshops, and training. 
• Faced challenges while conducting readiness assessment. 
• Dedicated place to conduct tuition classes on CCIs premises. 
• Gaps in proper documentation, students’ evaluation, record keeping. 

Plan of action for the coming year

• Hire assistant manager and determine by April 2023 who will contribute 60% of the time to this project. 
• Hire 2 tuition teachers where there are no teachers currently. 
• Engage Subject Matter Experts for teaching children in Grades 8 and above.
  Explore the possibility of coaching classes for Grades 8 and above. 
• Integrate the learnings from visits to the school with the intervention and capacity building of tuition teachers. 
• Continue the activities related to TLM and assessment with the assistant manager.
• Document learnings from the intervention.
• Provide a clear understanding to the Program Officers about the education project and expected outcomes. 
• The next set of internal training for the team is planned to be organized during the commencement of the new academic session. 
• Continue the direct, sustained engagement with local schools, and document the findings. 
• Review school calendars and deepen engagement with schoolteachers to encourage the participation of children in scholarship opportunities, extra-curricular activities, talent hunt events, competitions, etc. 
• Extracting learning from the documentation on class observations, feedback from tuition teachers, assessment data, and record of academic performance of each child. 
• Establish a forum to organize reflection on monthly basis with tuition teachers to share best practices, challenges faced, and strategies adopted to address challenges. 
• Ensure participation in workshops, reviews, and annual meets for cross-learning. 
• Document learnings from the project and create opportunities for learnings to be implemented in other CCIs where CSA operates. 

The organization will devote optimal time for capacity building in the coming future. This will entail: 

• Three days of training bi-yearly for tuition teachers. 
• Two hours monthly meeting with tuition teachers 
• Classroom observation and feedback for improvement through 30-minute discussions in the month. 
• TOT for ECG bi-yearly for tuition teachers. 
• Three days of training bi-yearly. 
• Quarterly ECG online training.