Young children young minds: a case study addressing the psycho social needs of preschool children Nidan Program in Bihar

Program History

Education program of NIDAN is outcome of its decade’s long association

with the informal sector workers mainly engaged in rag picking, waste

collection, cleaning and sweeping. After successfully organizing this

community, demand for education came up during the community

meetings. Intensive mobilization created awareness on the need and

importance of education for children leading to a demand for preschool

centres for young children in 2006. American Indian Foundation (AIF)

which was already supporting NIDAN’s Livelihood program agreed to

support its pre-school intervention and facilitated its linkages with Bodh

Shiksha Samiti (BSS), Jaipur for teacher’s training and technical inputs.

The requisite handholding and guidance for conceptualizing and

implementing the activities in initial stages was provided by AIF.

The strategy for preschool education evolved over the years. There was

not much clarity at the beginning on the pre-school program. Intervention

basically started with the aim of providing educational opportunity for

those children from the most marginalized communities who were left out

from the mainstream schooling. In fact this initiative was an extended

component of organization’s Livelihood intervention and layered upon it.

The very first batch of teachers had undergone training for both pre-

primary and primary levels. Classes were organized for both levels –Pre-

primary & Primary at the same centre by one teacher, addressing out of

school children through a bridge course and pre-primary children through

school readiness package. Older children would bring their siblings along

with them as their parents would leave home early morning for work.

With the enactment of the RTE in Bihar, clarity emerged to accord the

preschool activities in the centre itself and shift the primary special training

classes for out of school children in the government primary school

premises.

The Program Goal as spelt out by the leadership is universalization of

Pre-Primary Schooling in the state of Bihar The objectives of the program

were identified around this goal and primarily involved advocacy related

objectives to be taken up at all levels-with stakeholders and government as

well as action oriented objectives involving creating successful preschool

education models for children in the vulnerable communities, with an

intent of establishing NIDAN as a resource agency to operationalize such a

model.

Specifically the Objectives spelt out are:

To advocate and facilitate enrolment of children of all informal

sector workers in slums of Patna in formal schools

To advocate for retention of all enroled children of informal

sector workers staying in slums of Patna in the formal school

setting for at least 10 years;

To facilitate access of children below age of 6 years to ICDS

system in operational areas of NIDAN;

To establish NIDAN as a resource agency in the field of ECCE.

NIDAN decided to provide access to pre-primary schooling in a cluster

approach, saturating all relevant age group children belonging to socially

and economically marginalised populations in major slums where there

was a need expressed by the community. In addition surveys, mapping and

analysis of resources and thread helped finalise the area for intervention.

Program follows the model of one teacher for one centre, with teacher

pupil ratio of 1:30, with 30 functional centres physically located at 18

places, at times 2-3 centres are merged at one location having larger space

and high concentration of children. NIDAN advocates for a teacher pupil

ratio of 1:25 which it cannot maintain due to resource constraint.

The underlying philosophy of the preschool intervention is the school

readiness for 3 to 6 year old children. Program focuses on providing

quality education to children from marginalized and disadvantaged

communities. It seconds the developmental research that has shown that

early childhood years are critical for physical, social, emotional, cognitive

and language development. Investing in the early years of children’s lives

is key to developing children as confident and creative learners and

socially responsible members of society. The program operates with the

belief that a child who has attended pre-school is more likely to learn better

in school. Investing in young children’s well being and development is

therefore not only in the interest of the child but also contributes to a more

productive population. If a child is directly admitted to the primary

schooling then there are high chances of her drop-out. Even if children stay

in school, persistent patterns of underachievement are established right at

the beginning. It is in this context that the Early Childhood Development

programme focuses on an inclusive and pluralistic approach towards

education by providing quality pre-school experiences to these children. A

core concern of the programme is to ensure a smooth transition from early

childhood development settings to primary education. The programme also

lays emphasis on the holistic development of children and making parents

and families realise the importance of early childhood education in their

children’s lives.

CONTEXT

NIDAN’s pre-school program is being implemented in six urban slums

namely ward 21, 27, 47, 51, 56 & 62 of Patna city, in the state of Bihar.

The organization caters to a 4558 households with 21,158 members (data

relevant for June 2012) through its intervention. Caste wise distribution of

population shows (table 2) 50% SC/ 15% ST categories and 31% OBCs.

The Community members are mainly engaged in the informal sectors for

their livelihood mainly as rag pickers, cleaners waste pickers/cleaners,

wage labour, hawkers, bamboo basket makers , purchasing and selling of

old clothes, domestic helpers etc. Members of dalit communities which

constitute the largest population are engaged in rag picking, cleaning work,

waste works, basket making etc. these livelihood options are at the lowest

margins of social and economical marginalization in the Indian society.

Ward 21, 27, 47, 51, 57 & 62

Total House Hold 4558

Total Population 21158

Male 12052

Female 9106

Sex Ratio 756

Total

Population SC ST OBC General Minority Other's

4558 2281 694 1435 69 79 0

% 50% 15% 31% 2% 2% 0%

Deta

ils

Regular School Going

Irregular

Never

Enroll

Aganwad

i Balwadi NIDAN

Other

NGO

Tota

l M F M F M F M F M F M F

2385

27

7 236

1

9 27 630 645 71 58 71 94 142 115

%

12

% 10%

1

% 1%

26

% 27% 3% 2% 3% 4% 6% 5%

(Source: Annual Stocktaking of School by Organization)

NIDAN works primarily in the communities which inhabit largely

Scheduled Caste and Tribes population. Most of them work as rag pickers,

cleaners, small time sellers of used clothes etc. the community being more

or less homogenous in terms of their socio economic status does not

experience many disagreements amongst itself. Moving around in the

slums shows that there is a dearth of basic health facilities. The houses are

all cramped and inhabiting large families in one or two cramped rooms.

The surroundings have open urinals, defecation, garbage dumps, and water

logging. One could see the children and adolescents moving around and

playing at different times, even at times when they should have been in

school. Some girls moved around with their young siblings.

One visit in the community shows that being more or less homogenous in

nature, there are no focal power structures existing. There are some

families belonging to general category and to upper economic strata that do

not appreciate preschools being run for the marginalised but do not create

hindrance for NIDAN centres. They just send their children to other private

schools which run pre-primary sections. They did resist allocating

permanent community spaces or vacant land for the centres, but this did

not come in the way of actually getting the land eventually. However, these

few families do not access these centres for their children. As most of the

community belong to similar caste culture, and economic status, they are

pretty close knit in an urban slum environment. Thus they all have no

issues in sending their children to centres and hence there is no evidence of

exclusion based on caste and gender.

Instead of two, we decided to visit three preschool centres in the slums

where NIDAN is operating and found that all of them have mediocre to

poor infrastructure. Two centres are located on or close to the main roads

throwing safety challenge for the children. They have temporary structures

erected on previously used dumping sites. The vicinity around is extremely

dirty, unhygienic and full of garbage. However, the insides of the centres

are kept clean. The rooms are small but clean and hygienic. There are all

basic requirements in terms of dustbin, water purifier; open shelf, trunk and

tables. However, overall infrastructure demands much attention in terms of

earthen floors, seepage ridden walls, broken trunks etc.

There is one centre which has better infrastructure than the others in terms

of having a concrete building, albeit without proper door and windows, but

with airy and spacious room there are proper cupboards and trunks to store

material and documents. Notwithstanding poor infrastructure, the insides

of the centres show vibrancy with which they are organised and made

functional. These are developed as alternatives to the government

Anganwadis (preschools under the ICDS program) which are not

functional/available in the communities that they are targeting. The centres

provide education activities and health checkups for the children. The

families of these children are able to access other services provided by the

organisation such as the livelihood and health. They highly appreciate the

rapport they have with NIDAN and the fact that their children get free

preschool education.

Entering the centres takes you to a different world from what you see

outside. Clean vibrant spaces neatly organised. Groups of children

organised according to their ages and being addressed by one worker.

Children responded to whatever activities the teacher was making them

perform and also listened to her when she asked them to do something.

One could see her constantly engaging with the children, luring them with

colourful toys, beads and other material, keeping them engrossed in playful

activities.

Discussion with teachers at various points revealed that they have a lot to

do in the entire day which they organise around four sets of activities-

interacting with the families and discussing issues with them about their

children who are attending the centre, even interacting with other families

who do not send their children to centres and persuading them to let them

enrol and attend the centres. They then get the children to the centres

securely as they are really small children and cannot come on their own;

most of their parents already leave for work before the centre starts. After

they get the children to the centres they are involved in group activities

providing opportunities to children to learn. These are set of activities

which they plan out at the end of each day for the next day. Along with

planning they also assess the competencies of children at the end of each

day.

Personnel Management

A good intervention needs to have a sound program management system

and process for it to be effective. Getting into the deeper operational

components it was found that there is a systematically thought of structure

(refer diagram 1) to deliver the program. This involved people at all levels

who deal directly with children or community or are supervisors, mentors

etc. At each level there is clarity on the roles and responsibilities. There is

transparency and understanding amongst all on organisational mandate,

strategy and other communication. One can see permanency of the staff

who has been delivering right from the conception of the program.

.

Diagram 1

Director Director e

ctor

Program Manager-Education

Head-Program Quality

RTE Coordinator

MIS Coordinator

Accountant

Area supervisors are allowed to deal directly with those who have to

deliver the program (resource teachers and teachers themselves) so as the

quality is not compromised or diluted and they get single supervision and

guidance. The administrative and programmatic responsibilities are

accounted for at different levels with Program Manager leading the

program, accompanied by the Head-Program Quality, an RTE coordinator

to support the bridge program and facilitate the mainstreaming of children

to government or private schools under 25% quotas under RTE for children

from weaker sections of society. In order to ensure quality transaction and

expertise in handling the important age group of 3 to 6 years, qualified

teachers are appointed with minimum graduation degree, with relaxation to

high school for those who have a commitment to work with children from

lower strata of society in slum areas.

An intense selection process is followed for the same.

After preliminary screening and short listing from the pool of CV

Area Supervisors Academic Facilitators

Teachers

Resource Teachers

candidate is invited to have face to interaction where they have to answer

certain question related assessing the attitude and knowledge about the

education and kind of communities program is dealing with. Followed this

selected candidate is sent for one week of rigorous field work in the

community and attached to a resource centre. Once this immersion process

is completed then candidate write the report and final round of discussion

is done.

Teachers are the core of the program on which the success of the program

depends immensely. Some teachers reported their joining the project was

solely due to them being driven by the poor economic condition of their

families and lack of opportunities in the market due to them not being

professionally qualified to get a government or a corporate job. . However,

once they joined, they appreciated the space provided to them to exhibit

their passion, friendly environment, community support and recognition

that they were making a difference in the lives of their children.

In the words of teacher Vijeta “I feel good when I think that I am

contributing in the education of those children, who could otherwise lose

their childhood and may lead to become bad person. I feel very happy and

pride in this job when I find that there are many children in slums next to

her home who don’t have this opportunity but here i am making the life of

few of the children. This is the greatest reward for me”.

An effective support system has been institutionalised for the teachers as

well as supervisors, with both encouraged to maintain a regular daily diary

penning down any problems faced including personal, professional or

emotional issues. Diaries are read by the staff next in the hierarchy and

issues are discussed with the staff individually. Supervisors not only work

as mentors but also help in making the lesson plans and conducting the

classroom activities if teacher is feeling nervous or demotivated due to any

reasons. Opportunity of team work and daily interaction with communities

creates emotional bond among team members and with community.

Teachers and other staffs enjoy and nurture this relationship. A well

receiving class of enthusiastic and happy children further keep up their

motivation.

Programme

NIDAN adapts Bodh’s curriculum for Early Childhood Education which

rests on the premise of the National Curricular Framework. It recognizes

ECD classroom processes play a vital role in enhancing the social

competence and school readiness of children. Each child is accepted as an

individual with his/her own feelings, ideas and relationships with others,

different from those of adults, and the program supports each child’s

individual pattern of development and learning style. Teaching is rooted in

the child’s familiar world where he/ she are allowed to handle and explore

materials from everyday life. Children are encouraged to draw and paint,

practice saying words and phrases, speak aloud in the classroom and sing

rhymes and songs. Children also play with flashcards, geometrical shapes,

beads, puzzles and clay items, which stimulate their imagination. The

attempt is to provide meaningful activities to children at the individual

level and abundant opportunities to learn from interacting with people and

material. Teachers work towards creating a safe and nurturing classroom

environment based on trust between teacher and children. This facilitates

children’s independence and encourages self expression and creativity.

The curricular objectives are geared towards development of adequate

muscular coordination & basic motor skills, good health habits & basic

skills necessary for personal social adjustment, ability to express her

thoughts and feelings in clear language, independence and creativity,

intellectual curiosity and understanding of world around and new interests,

social attitudes and manners, healthy group participation, sensitivity to

rights & privileges of others, emotional maturity to express , understand,

accept and control feelings and emotions, aesthetic appreciation.

The pedagogy used is a mix of planned free play with guided activities,

individual, small group and large group activities that would provide lots

of opportunities for teacher –child, child to child interaction and interaction

with play materials and environment, variety of opportunities to listen to

stories, handle and bond with picture books, learn rhymes, be immersed in

a language environment, create, indulge in imaginative play, ask and think

out answers, do simple problem solving, experiment and generally have a

‘feel good’ experience for a positive self image.

School Readiness play activities involve Reading Readiness: eg. picture –

sound matching, shapes, phonetics; increasing vocabulary; verbal

expression, developing bond with an interest in reading through picture

books, storytelling, charts etc Writing Readiness: eg. eye hand

coordination, interest in writing, left to right directionality, Readiness for

Mathematics: developing skills in Classification, Seriation, pattern making

, reasoning, problem solving, Forming concepts: pre number and number

concepts and space concepts and vocabulary, Environment concepts and

vocabulary; Approaches to Learning: to Interest, initiative and curiosity,

engagement and persistence, reasoning and problem solving.

The entire curriculum is organised according to ages of the children,

specifically for 3+, 4+ and 5+ ages for a period of twelve months as per a

weekly plan, organised from simple to complex competencies. But the

focus is also maintained on equipping the child to smoothly transit into

class one by acquiring necessary competencies at the reading and writing

level.

The four major components focuses are academic, environment, motor

skill development and health. In academic component, competencies of

children are built around letter and numbers. Motor skill developments are

done through colours, drawing, clay and some other classroom exercise.

Component of environment focuses on proving knowledge and learning

about surrounding of children like fruits, vegetables, places, means of

transportation etc. Under the health component, children are taught about

imbibing basic health and hygienic practices like washing hands before

and after having food, washing hands after toilet, daily bath, cleanliness at

home and surrounding. In addition, time to time health camps are

organized for children.

A Daily Schedule of 3 hours involves

Morning assembly, activities involving physical exercise like jumping,

movement of body parts, academic teaching learning, play activities. The

pedagogy involves use of a variety of activities, text materials while

practicing gender sensitivity, social class sensitivity and sensitivity to

needs of children. Teachers were often seen adapting the curriculum to the

needs of the children in order to best foster learning. Focus is seen on

concepts like children learning by doing, learning by discovery, by

constructing their own knowledge. The role of the teacher is that of a

facilitator for providing an enabling environment and the scaffolding to the

child’s own process of learning.

For younger age group, the effort is to move the child from perceptions to

concepts. This becomes possible through appropriate and varied

experiences through interaction with the teacher, with the peers and with

materials and the environment around her. Learning is related to their

prior experiences and immediate environment. Reversible thinking and

ability to conserve are focused as well. Children were seen applying these

concepts to solve simple problems through use of cognitive skills of

reasoning, creative thinking and problem solving. Children are provided

an environment for active learning, not merely relating to physical activity,

but also engaging the child’s language and cognitive faculties like

reasoning, thinking, articulation and problem solving, which can allow for

multiple solutions.

They are given opportunities to try out, manipulate, make mistakes and

correct themselves. Their experiences and knowledge levels are built upon

to create learning situations and examples. Recognising that learning

moves from familiar to unfamiliar concepts and from specific to general,

children are sometimes taken outside the centre to provide varied learning

situations. Children are appreciated for their creative abilities and skills

such as musical, dance, interpersonal, linguistic etc. Play is recognised as

the best medium for learning and used extensively by providing joyful

environment. Supervisor Manoj Kumar says that pre-school means that

there should not be any pressure one child and if ‘pre’ is removed from

‘pressure’ word then it becomes ‘sure’ that child will be adopt to the

environment in any pre-school.

Children are allowed to learn at their own pace and provided opportunities

for cooperative learning through peer work, group work and group

interaction, with the teacher as a facilitator, in addition to individualized

learning. There is also space for children to revisit the concepts and skills

along with the new learning so that the learning gets consolidated.

An example of interesting activities followed in the learning situation:

rhymes, poems, clay work, colours and drawing, dancing, jumping and

group play. Teaching numbers up to ten, vegetables, fruits, means of

transportation, relation among family members through rhymes and songs.

Story telling session asking children to imagine about what will happen

next. Developing on language skills through drawing animals, different

shapes and sizes, making of fish by using the materials like paper,

scissors, gum, colours; mimicry, dancing etc. Monotony is avoided by not

continuing any activity beyond 15-20 minutes.

Varied and interesting teaching-learning material is visible in the centres

and on the walls. Material like flash card puzzles, shape set picture cards

and picture charts, number card, dice and match sticks. Worksheets story

Books, single rods and double Rods for counting, pencils and crayons are

used for reading and writing teachings. Material like flash card, puzzles,

shape set, picture cards and picture charts, Number card, dice and match

sticks. Worksheets, Story Books, Single Rods and Double Rods for

counting, pencils and crayons for used for reading and writing teachings.

Most of the materials used are made by teachers themselves. Teachers have

freedom to by some materials on themselves up to Rs. 500/- centre if they

needed so. There are materials like posters and charts are placed on the

wall for facilitate the learning. However, they are placed little higher on the

wall and children might face difficulty in reading them. Along with

teachers’ work children work has been given place on the wall and they are

changed every month.

Planning a daily schedule was seen as a refreshing exercise with a balance

of different activities around the content area, individual, peer to peer and

group activities, outdoor and indoor activities, mix of active and not so

active activities, guided, open ended activities and refreshing new

activities. These are planned with a flexible and participatory approach.

According to teacher Rashmi “some of the points she always keeps

in mind while teaching the children of this age group. She does not

believe in following the rigid structure of classroom transaction and

put stress on flexibility in method of teaching. If a child is not

learning through the method as planned or used earlier then teacher

should change her way. Joyful teaching and learning is at core of

making child learn. Child should not feel scared or bore when in the

process of learning. They should feel that they have full freedom of

doing what they wish to do. The children coming from the families

where both mother and fathers are out of home for work and they

are looked after by elder siblings or grandparents. In this scenario,

parent like care is very essential so children should not feel alone or

not cared”.

According to her childhood “is a period when child develop the skill

of communication and socialization. This should not be obstructed

in any case even when child is doing something which is not so

acceptable from the point of view of elders. Children learn through

the games and sports and they should be given this opportunity

freely. Generally children are naughty and insisting about their

liking and demand so parents should not treat it as symbol of bad

behaviours. Children have the tendency to get attracted towards

colourful objects, toys and eatables.”

An excellent teacher-child bonding is vivid with all teachers addressing all

children by their names and reacting to slightest of behaviour expression.

Punitive or verbal punishment is a complete ban. In the last one and half

hour of day all teachers sit together for regular assessment of children in

the class and planning of next day accordingly. Assessment process

focuses on what the child knows--and not as conventionally done on what

he/she does not know. Individual differences are recognized and

acknowledged in this process and supports teachers to track the progress of

every child.

An example is illustrated below:

Teachers use worksheet to conduct an activity with each child and

appreciate each child for her work and not rate her as best, average or poor.

Observations on each child’s participation in games and other group

activities are noted in daily diary. A monthly assessment of competencies

acquired is also maintained but not disclosed to children, however used for

attending to each child individually. Teacher maintains the monthly work

book for every child attending the centre. Progress of children in narrative

forms is written under the heads such as language, numeric skills,

communication and child’s behaviour. There is also an annual assessment

to map each child’s progress, attempted through a participatory and

inclusive process where teacher, child and parents come together to discuss

the progress of child. The assessment is done in a group of five children

along with their parents. Following is a pointer on the Child Monthly

Evaluation Book & Teacher Monthly Evaluation Report used to track

progress at various levels and primarily used to inform planning and

facilitating learning.

Child Monthly Evaluation Book Teacher Monthly

Evaluation Report

Month

Name of Teacher

No. of days Centre Opened

Child Attendance

Level

Behaviour & Habits

Cleanliness

Participation in Assembly

Physical Development

Educational Achievement

-Our world

-Games

-Stories

-Environment

Month

Name of Teacher

Name of Centre

Name of Group

Level

No. of Children

Regular, Irregular

and drop outs

Reasons of drop

out and irregularity

Behaviours &

Habits

Cleanliness

Participation in

Other Observation/Comments Assembly

Physical

Development

Educational

Achievement

-Our world

-Games

-Stories

-Environment

Organization of

Centre

Community

Interaction

Suggestions

The teachers and the program personnel shared about a rigorous

planning and review approach in place as a two tier planning system,

one at the centre level and the other at the organization level. Centre

related planning is purely academic and done after the centre time, at an

allocated resource centre assigned to the teachers where a group of teachers

come together to develop their next day teaching plans based upon the

suggestive weekly break up of syllabus, share their problems if any and

look for solutions together along with the resource teachers who also

support them at this time. A weekly one to one progress review is also

undertaken at these centres every Monday.

Bottom-up approach is followed in planning and review, building on

teachers contributing at daily and weekly meeting, which is taken up by the

resource teachers monthly and annual planning and review meetings

attended by supervisors, program manager, RTE coordinators and Program

Head. An intensive organization level planning and review is undertaken

at the annual 15 days review cum capacity building workshop in the month

of June, covering both academic and non-academic aspects. In addition,

monthly review and planning meetings take stock of progress, issues,

feedback from supervisors and monitoring visits and plan ahead.

Community has not much involvement in planning of the program. There

role in planning is limited to the opening of schools, safety of infrastructure

and its smooth functioning. However, opinion of parents influences the

planning of the program. For example, when teachers, Vijeta and Sujata

and Supervisor Manoj Kumar shared complaints from parents regarding

children not learning anything as teachers are only conducting song, dance

and play activities, presentation of work done by children in monthly

meetings of parents and their involvement in the year end assessment of

children was brought into the practice. Parents are consulted for

organization of events like celebration of children’s day, independence and

republic day, any competition, festival, health camps etc.

Resources are extremely important to establish and test out models and in

this regard the suggestions from the donor are respected to the extent that it

is in line with the overall program strategy, agreed project objectives and

deliverables. In this regard AIF brought in its previous experience of

working in the sector and greatly supported NIDAN to tie up with resource

agencies and build their capacity to deliver an intensive program. Capacity

building of teacher, syllabus planning, teaching methodology is some of

the important domain which was strengthened through this support.

The whole approach to regular planning and review involving personnel

and teachers at various levels establishes a rigorous and continuous

monitoring system, supporting all to track their performance. Following is

the illustration of this mechanism. Teachers’ makes daily plan based on the

weekly break up of syllabus which they already have and records its

progress along with other activities of the day in their daily diary. This

diary forms the basis of discussion with supervisors during weekly

meetings. In addition, supervisors based on their observation of classroom

and overall centres during visits provide the teachers feedback. Further,

outputs of this weekly meeting feeds into the centre level monthly review

and planning meetings of supervisors, resource teachers and program

manager.

COMMUNITY

An important feature of NIDAN’s program worth noting is that it is

not a supply driven time bound project rather it is based on community

demand. Creation of demand for education required a long process of

community mobilization and sensitization over a number of years. Starting

any such school with assumption that there is no pre-school in the area and

community members will start sending their children automatically could

have proved wrong. NIDAN took this risk into consideration and involved

community from the first step onwards. Through door to door interaction

and meetings with community members support was built for this

endeavour. Parents were encouraged to think for a better future for their

children and look up to education for providing them this opportunity,

while clearly supporting this desire by providing accesses to absolutely

free preschool education based on principles of equity, and a hope for

mainstreaming to formal schools. Strong participation of community is

reflected at various levels. All 18 sites for school have been provided by

the community. Community has donated the land and made financial

contributions for creating the infrastructure. Electricity connection at every

centre is extended by neighbouring families free of charge. This is also the

great support to the program and symbol of solidarity with organization.

Community also takes ownership to take care of safety and security of

centres after they close down for the day. Neighbourhood community

member keep the keys of centres and at certain places people use the centre

as guest room or rest room in the night and vacate it early morning.

Bharti Goswami mother of one of the six children who were studied

during the research perceives childhood as period of enjoy without

getting worried about right or wrong. Playing freely and do what a child

want to do. Child should not feel lack of any materialistic things what

he/she desire and she should not feel dearth of resources. Non fulfilment

of wishes may create inferiority feelings in children.

As far as views regarding the infrastructure are concerned, she feels that

there is need to improve some services at centre. She cites the example of

how the hand pump besides the school was supposed to serve the

children but as of date it is not accessible to them. There is always crowd

of community people at hand pump and water lodging there. Roof leaking

makes the sitting difficult in rainy season. There is always fear of

stumbling of smaller kids due to uneven and sloppy flooring. She thinks

that there should be little more academic learning of children and they

should be able to read and write properly.

Bi-monthly meeting with community at centres are organized to keep them

updated about what is going in the centres, significant progress or any

issues. Community is also involved into the celebration of annual events

like Independence Day, republic day, children day etc. Regular discussion

on progress or any critical issues with community ensure the transparency

in the process. Disputes over the land for donating it to run school have

been solved by the community itself through public meetings in some

places.

There was a school inspector in one location from the same community

who was opposed to opening of schools fearing losing his importance and

social status among the community. Same was with vacant space in

another area where a group of people were highly opposed to open school

permanently on vacant space. Both the schools studied were initially run

on streets, under terrace of government building or sometime in someone

homes and then moved to present locations having somewhat temporary

shelters of their own.

This support converted into monetary terms, accounting for both recurring

and non recurring costs, has huge implication for the program running into

huge sums for 30 centres. This contributes to the sustainability of the

intervention.

None of the centres have its own toilet facility and this is the biggest

challenge for the female teachers in slum area. Vijeta who is the oldest

serving teacher with program for almost five years says that community

members offer teachers to voluntarily use their toilets. She further says that

she has run the current school initially on streets and in houses of people

during rain or winters before moving to the present location. She gives

credit to the community for running this centre so long and her

uninterrupted service here. She was never harassed by anyone in the

community and never felt scared going door to door or working late

evening whenever required. Teachers are largely respected and supported

by all in the community. From the various accounts and experiences of

teachers it is quite clear that support of community has played key role in

retention of teachers for long.

Community fought the legal battle with power centres who were opposed

to giving the land for running the Kamla Nagar pre-school which is also

the resource centre for all centres in the area. In case of Bahadurpur

centre, at the request made by community, a poor community member has

provided surplus private land to open the school and others members in

community have contributed financially for building shelters.

Parents, especially mothers’ participation in their children education is

explicit in monthly meetings, events and assessment. Male members of

family go to work early morning and come in the evening. Therefore, these

are the women who mostly come for meetings.

Awareness level of parents on childhood and learning of children at

different levels is limited. However, due to their involvement in centre

activities, there is an exposure to such terms. They have started to

recognise childhood as a period of enjoyment and fun but also learning of

basic manners. However, they do have high academic learning

expectations from the program which the program personnel keep

balancing out in their interactions with them.

They want to see their children read, talk and write properly. They

appreciate children being taught hygiene practices, skill of wearing clothes

respecting and communicating with elders. Interaction with the parents

showed tht they are largely satisfied with the learning levels achieved by

their children in the NIDAN centres. Importance of regularity in schools,

habit of sitting and inhibited playing is emphasised by the parents as

important aspects of learning. Major funds to run the initiative are

supported through an institutional donor like AIF which includes all

program costs like salaries, administrative costs, travel, training, capacity

building and other miscellaneous costs. Infrastructure is supported largely

though the community contributions or the space provided by community.

All maintenance and repair work is done through the contribution only.

There are the small individual and business houses donations which

support some small activities. Agencies like UNINOR and Reliance which

has offices in the town has supported the centres in terms of providing aqua

guard system, garbage box, fan etc. There are few private schools in the

area like which supports particular schools in organizing the health camp

for children and their vaccinations time to time.

NIDAN model works out to be a cost effective as community owns the

centre and program have not to pay for space or electricity. Only salary and

capacity building of teachers and material support is the responsibility of

NIDAN. Much of this can be attributed to the no focus of the government

on pre-primary schooling. Government focus is on only between the age

group of 6-14 years. There is need to design a comprehensive and

contextual package for pre-schooling. Health, nutrition, education of

children in pre-primary schooling should not be seen in isolation from each

other. Reason for drop out at primary level is much more linked to the poor

pre-primary schooling.

Training and Capacity Building

An intensive system for capacity building is built in the program design

through external and internal resource people. External formal induction

training was provided to teachers, supervisors and program manager and a

pool of master trainers created who now provide regular training to the

staff from time to time. This involves one day monthly planning and

review meeting of all teachers at NGO office and annual workshop of

fifteen days to assess the progress made, issues, and planning are used as

building the capacities of teachers. Teachers identify their weak areas and

try to bridge the gap through peer learning in weekly staff meeting at

resource centre. If still they face problems then supervisor and program

manager support them in the process. Over the period of time a pool of

resource teacher has been developed out of oldest serving teachers. These

teachers work as mentor for newly appointed teachers, help in preparing

TLMs, revisions in syllabus and implementation of syllabus. Exposure

visits for teachers and supervisor are beneficial in enhancing knowledge

base and breaking attitudes and beliefs that negatively impact the approach

to ECD.

Exposure visit has great influence on the teacher’s mindset and attitude.

Supervisor and teacher describe that none of the participants who had gone

for exposure and training at BSS had ever seen such kind of teaching

learning process in their life. According to Supervisor Manoj Kumar “We

found that system of education over there (at BSS) quite different from

what it was in Bihar. All the 24 teachers who had gone with us had never

seen such kind of teaching learning practice in their life.” Teacher Sujata

says “Before training at BSS I dint know that how to make lesson plan and

even not aware about need of planning before teaching. I came to know

about importance of different activities for teaching learning after exposure

to BSS classroom.”

BSS was engaged for providing technical support to program during

inception phase and experts of BSS came to centres and provided onsite

supports to teachers. Time to time project engage the experts of education

and ECE from the donor agency and NGOs like Save the children, PLAN,

Agakhan Foundation, AditiPlan etc. for onsite technical support and

capacity building of teachers. In addition, program invites experts from

DIET and other government agencies to provide technical input on various

aspects of ECE to teachers.

AIF provides regular training and capacity building support to teachers and

it is part of the MoU also. Recently, an expert of donor agency visited the

project and builds the capacity of teachers in teaching English language in

ECE. Apart from these exposure visits of best practices of ECE is

organized of teachers and staffs. Recently program team visited Kerla to

have exposure of ECE practice.

[Budget/Resources]

Funding Sources: Major fund to run the project comes from the

institutional donor like AIF which has been funding the entire project since

its inception. AIF bears all program costs which include staffs salary,

administrative costs, travel, training and capacity building and other

miscellaneous costs. This source of funding covers the major expenditure

of the project. Cost of infrastructure is managed from the community

contributions or the space provided by community. All maintenance and

repair work is done through the contribution only. There are the small

individual and business houses donations also which support the small

activities of the project. Agencies like UNINOR and Reliance which is

having offices in the town has supported the centres in terms of providing

aqua guard system, garbage box, fan etc. There are few private schools in

the area like which supports particular schools in organizing the health

camp for children and their vaccinations time to time.

Different funding sources, other than institutional donor funding sources

good, even it is in very small proportion is good example of reducing over

dependency on donor. Contribution from community and parents ensure

their ownership and support from other stakeholders helps in building

awareness and mobilization for cause. Increasing diversity in terms of

funding sources will help in smooth functioning of project and minimizing

the resources crunch for supporting the project.

Factors influencing Budget Planning and Expenditures: At the

beginning of year all the program management team including Program

Director, Program Manager, Supervisors and Resource teachers come

together and forecasts the needs and requirement of the next year. Since

staffs of all levels are involved into the forecasting process so planning is

so perfect that there are not many issues with expenditure. This has been

possible to due to learning from the six years of continuous planning for

same project says program manager Asif Iqubal. However, planning is

influenced by the organization mission of reaching out to all slums of

Patna city. Apart from the vision requirement given by the supervisors are

given the priority. Agenda of donor agency also influence the planning to

certain extent like if agency wants to introduce some new activity or any

kind of training and capacity building program for teachers.

Accounting System and Income and Expenditure Monitoring: Salaries

of teachers are major financial expenditure in the program that is directly

paid into the account of teachers through RTGS system. Payment of salary

directly into the account through electronic system makes the task of

accounting easier and also ensures transparency. Other major expenditure

is the procurement of materials and goods in the program which is done by

the empanelled vendors of organization finalized after due diligence each

year. For purchase below the amount of Rs. 500/- permission of supervisor

is required for teachers. A bill of any such kind of purchasing is approved

by the immediate supervisor at program unit level and beyond that it goes

to director. Monitoring of income and expenditure is done through the

accounting software put in place. Daily entry of expenditure is done

against the planned head and report generated. A monthly report of the

same is also sends to donor and in case of over income or expenditure

systems gives the reminder.

A rigorous and well accounted for electronic financial system exists for

accounting and expenditure monitoring, ensuring timely and smooth flow

of funds at all levels including teacher salaries.

[Scalability]

Right Selection of Target Group and community mobilization is key

factors in replication: According to program manager view, selection of

right target groups plays the key role in replication and success of the

program. He emphasises on reaching out to the communities who are

extremely needy and cannot afford the education of their children and also

there is no other agency present and catering to their need. Selection of

right target group is important keeping in view the creation of demand

from the community and thus ownership. Community mobilization is

essential right from the beginning keeping in view the sustainability five

years down the line when project withdraw. Community mobilization also

required for day to day support also in order to protect centres, teachers

and children from any kind of harassment by unsocial element. If

community does not take ownership then it is likely that centres will be

misused.

Clarity about what is to be done: Another important aspect which needs

to be considered is clarity about works to be done. Proper reality checks of

organization should be done before hand regarding what has to be done

and what not. This clarity about pathways helps in focusing on the areas

which needs greater attention. Clarity about planning should encompass

both academic and non-academic aspects. Another related important point

is that any activity in the project should be contextual and every borrowed

method may not work.

Not physical infrastructure but quality of teaching learning is

important factor in replication: There is not much emphasis given on

building and other physical infrastructure. For project director, overall

environment is very crucial in education of children in ECE centres. TLM,

other material and Teachers are the crucial in success of any ECE program.

There should not be any compromise with TLM and capacity building of

teacher. TLM, other material and Teachers are the crucial in success of

any ECE program. There should not be any compromise with TLM and

capacity building of teacher says project director.

Scalability involves approach towards identication of relevant

stakeholders, target beneficiaries, a strong community mobilisation

strategy leading to community support and ownership.

Scalability also involves ensuring quality in teaching learning

processes at all levels.

[Sustainability]

Community Support Group: Project director see sustainability of centres

a major issues after NIDAN’s withdrawal and he has no straight plan for

this. However, he finds NIDAN model very cost effective as community

own the centre and program have not to pay for space or electricity. Only

salary and capacity building of teachers and material support is the

responsibility of NIDAN. Much of this can be attributed to the no focus of

the government on pre-primary schooling. Government focus is on only

between the age group of 6-14 years. There is need to design a

comprehensive and contextual package for pre-schooling. Health, nutrition,

education of children in pre-primary schooling should not be seen in

isolation from each other. Reason for drop out at primary level is much

more linked to the poor pre-primary schooling.

Involvement of community for sustainability is inbuilt in the philosophy of

program. In the entire process of implementation of program key focus is

laid on mobilization of community so that after phasing out the project

community could take up the responsibility of centres. Program is now in

the process of formation and strengthening of community support group

involving parents, community members and leaders from the community.

This community support group in future will take up any issues related

centres including need of financial support. If this community support

group comes into existence and start functioning independently, it will be

unique model of ECE program.

Fund Mobilization: From this year onwards, program is introducing the

system of charging fees from the parents. Parents are being reached out

with proposal of paying fees voluntarily for their children education. As of

date there is not cap on fee and parents have freedom to contribute as per

their capacity considering the improvement in learning level of their

children. Reason behind introducing fee is to develop the culture of paying

for the service and gradually generating revenues to cover various small

costs of activities and material which are crucial in quality teaching and

learning of any ECE program.

Teachers from this year onwards are given the responsibility of raising

funds from the community and individuals. It will be a great support to the

program if teachers are able to generate certain percentage of their salary

from the community. Combining together both models of fund raising

program is expecting to generate sufficient fund few years down the line

which will make the centre sustainable.

Challenges

Like all interventions, NIDAN’s intervention is also not devoid of

challenges. These include poor economic condition of parents which

necessitates children to support them for earning bread from time to time.

Often when they are unwell or for other reasons, they are unable to go for

work, in which case their children start going for rag picking. In this

situation regularity of children in centres is hampered. Another challenge is

the mobilization of children every morning by teachers. Children generally

do not come on their own and also parents expect teachers to come to their

home to take their children and drop.

Parents have a lot of expectations from the teacher and program and this

becomes a challenge when they create undue pressure on teachers and

children for learning competencies that are not relevant at a particular age.

They need to be explained and convinced about appropriate and accepted

levels of learning which are fostered through the intervention. Resources

and Infrastructure is also a big challenge to establish child friendly and

safe spaces for learning.

Below are the some of the observation which you may like to fit in

somewhere if it needed

Assessment process at the center is planned in such a way that

allows teachers to track the progress of every child. Teachers

conduct the activities on worksheet for every competency. There is

instruction, purpose and name of child written on the worksheet.

These sheets are collected by teacher and kept safely for further

observation.

Participation of children in games and other group activities are

observed by teacher carefully which are written in daily diary of

teacher if they are very important and unusual.

Teacher maintains the monthly work book for every child attending

the center. Progress of children in narrative forms is written under

the heads already defined which includes language, numeric skills,

communication and behaviors of child.

Teachers do not discourage children by providing feedback about

the work children do on work sheets. Children having done very

good task of writing or drawing are appreciated but not present like

winner are most competitive.

This job proved to be life support for her. She now enjoys the job as

she has developed a sense of ownership with center. She had

started teaching on streets and center has its own place now.

Earlier community members also did not give positive responses

but over the period they treat teachers like one among them.

Teachers have now a kind of affiliation and attachment with this

place, community and children. I feel good when she think that she

is contributing in the education of those children, who could

otherwise lose their childhood and may lead to become bad person.

She feel very comfortable and happy and pride with this job when

she found that there are many children in slums on the from her

home who don’t have this opportunity but she is making the life of

few. This is the greatest reward for her.

Teachers don’t feel that they are the employee of the organization

and doing job for pay. Management is always there to support

them during any issues with community. Even they also get mental

support from the management. In her daily diary she is allowed to

write her feelings and emotion along with the work. Supervisor and

Program Manager read their dairies and speak to them.

When children fade up with the same work which continue for half

an hour’s, teacher starts story telling session or engage the children

in games or Balgeets in groups which includes the counting

exercises, name of animals, vegetables and flowers.

Syllabus for the all three groups is there and any addition or

deletion based on feedback of all teachers and experts is done in

the month of May-June every year during annual workshop of all

teachers. Syllabus is then broken in parts for every quarterly,

monthly and weekly learning objective. She plans for next day

teaching after end of the class every day and any issues are shared

in monthly review meetings. Daily planning are detail planning

which includes the objectives, methods, process, and assessment of

teaching particular competencies.

She has never experienced any kind of harassment by any

community members during her five years of tenure. She that

perfect lesson planning process helps her best in teaching.

Earlier community members also did not give positive responses

but over the period they treat her like one among them. She has

now a kind of affiliation and attachment with this place, community

and children. She feel very comfortable and happy and pride with

this job when she found that there are many children in slums on

the from her home who don’t have this opportunity but she is

making the life of few.

Annexure

METHODOLOGY

Selection of Pre-School Program: Using the purposive sampling technique, a

preschool program being implemented by a NGO NIDAN in Patna (capital of the state

of Bihar in India) was identified by the RAC and research team based upon the criteria

usesd to identify a ‘good practice’.

The program has established 30 centres at 18 different locations in the city of Patna.

Two centres were purposively identified for the study, one that demonstrates good

practice and another that is facing some challenges and yet performing based on criteria

like infrastructure, number of children and their regularity, type of community and its

support, resource availability, teacher capacity.

Finalizing the Sample: As per the study guidelines, six target children were selected

for intensive study, three from each centre (high performing and low performing) and

School Readiness Instrument (SRI) was administered on them. Primary care givers

(all mothers in this case) of these six children were interviewed and Adaptive

Behaviour Scale (ABS) was administered on them to understand socio-emotional

abilities to adjust to the new environment, especially from home to preschool to a

formal school setting. In addition, in-depth interviews

were conducted with two teachers from good performing centre, one teacher from

average performing centre, one community member from each centre, Program

Director, Program Manager and two supervisors. One Focus Group Discussion (FGD)

with parents and community members were conducted at each centre to have diverse

perspectives and views.

Tools of Data Collection: For data collection largely quantitative tools were used

which includes ethnographic interviewing, participant observation, videotaping,

document analysis, and focus group meetings. In addition to this some of the

quantitative tools were also used like Early Childhood Education Quality

Assessment Scale (ECEQAS), Questionnaire (Program Costing), Adaptive

Behaviour Scale (ABS) and School Readiness Instrument (SRI) to describe the

sample characteristics and link the findings to data from other research strands. Data

was collected from diverse sources to ensure the credibility of the study. Qualitative

methodology of data collection allowed capturing the first hand experience, views and

perception of closely linked key stakeholders of pre-school program.

ECEQAS was administered for two regular functioning days (but not consecutive) to

get a better sense of the main features of the programme. Field notes and

unstructured interviews have been critical aspect of the qualitative methodology

adopted for the case study. The Program manager’s, Program Quality Head and

Supervisors interview were done prior to observing both the centres in program so as to

have an idea about the philosophy and approach of the organisation, which helped to

inform the observations and assessment. The positive aspects or successes of the

program noted by the Program manager were studied in more detail for deriving lessons

for the larger system. Following table represent the volume of data collected from

field using different tools.

Tools of Data Collection No. First Phase Interview Second Phase Interview

Qualitative Tools

In-depth Interview 15 Two teacher

One supervisor

Program Manager

Three Parents

One Community Person

One teacher

One supervisor

Program Quality Head

Three Parents

One Community Person

Process of Data Collection and Experience: Experience of data collection during both

phases was quite insightful and full of learning. Changes had to be made in the initial

data collection plan due to the non-availability of some of the participants as per plan.

NGO management was quite supportive and extended all possible helps to make it

happen smoothly. Supervisors of respective centres were all along during the both

phases. At no point of time teachers gave the impression of being over conscious or

artificial as some outsider is visiting the centre and observing their work minutely. They

were all very comfortable conducting their routine activities and classroom transactions.

Even same experience researchers had with children as hardly any children after first

day was distracted from outsider presence. Good rapport building and developing

friendly relation was helpful in making teachers and children comfortable during entire

process of data collection. As far as personal experiences is concerned, it used to be

long hectic day starting from the morning in 7:00 am to 6:00 pm in evening without

lunch which was in the evening followed by glancing through the data collected and

identifying any gaps or clarification.

Transcription of data into narratives from audio tap and notes was most tedious task

during the entire process. Coding as an important aspect of analysis was careful reading

of entire data sets again and again and coming to conclusion for defining a particular

theme.

Data Analysis:

Participant

Observation 5 Two at Kamla Nehru

Nagar Centre

Two at Bazarsamiti and

one at Rampur

FGD 2 One at Kamla Nehru

Nagar Centre

One at Bazar Samiti

Centre

Video Taping 2 One at Kamla Nehru

Nagar Centre for 2.5

hours

One at Bazar Samiti

Centre for 2.5 hours

Interaction with

nearby primary

school teachers

2 One at Kamla Nehru

Nagar Area Primary

School

One at Bazar Samiti

Primary and Higher

Secondary School

Document Analysis Process Documentation, Syllabus, Monitoring Formats, Assessment Tools

Qualitative Tools

Early Childhood

Education Quality

Assessment Scale

(ECEQAS)

4 Two at Kamla Nehru

Nagar Area Primary

School

One at Bazar Samiti

Centre and One at

Rampur Centre

Adaptive Behaviour

Scale (ABS) 6 Three Children at Kamla

Nehru Nagar Centre

Three Children at Bazar

Samiti Centre

School Readiness

Instrument (SRI) 6 Three Children at Kamla

Nehru Nagar Centre

Three Children at Bazar

Samiti Centre

Questionnaire

(Program Costing) One time for entire program

a. Transcribing the Data: Collection of data and its transcription went hand in

hand right from the beginning. This approach helped in figuring out the gaps in

data collection and requirement for further probing on unexpected findings that

came up. The raw data from audio tapes were first transcribed indiscriminately

and later reorganized into meaningful narratives.

b. Coding of Data: Process of coding was followed after transcribing the data into

narratives. Each interview, FGD, Participant Observation, and ABS were coded

without rigidly using pre defined Etic codes. Codes were labelled as the

concepts came up during the process of coding which were mostly the emic

codes. Rigorous process of coding was followed for each set of data. Codes

were divided into sub-codes and examples were provided to explain the codes.

Matrix having two columns was created to present the codes and sub-codes with

examples.

c. Developing Themes: All codes were further categorized to create the themes

based on the guiding questions of the study. During the process of pulling

together codes under different themes, some new themes were also developed.

Codes were organised under the relevant themes and relationships were

established.

d. Developing Claims: As a final step of data analysis claims were made based on

the emerging themes and sub-themes. As first step in establishing the claim

codes were organized separately under each theme and based on the relationship

among codes descriptive narration and interpretation was given. Although it was

comprehensive process and captured all key aspects of program but not

essentially a claim. As second steps after discussion among research team

members claims were establishing analysing the relationship among various

themes having solid evidence and rational. It was a reiterative process of going

through the narratives, codes and descriptive write up.

e. Triangulation: To establish the credibility and authenticity of data collected

same questions were crossed checked with different stakeholders during

interview and FGDs i.e. cross checking the method of planning and review at

four level of Program Manger, Program Quality Head, Supervisor and Teachers.

Similarly cross checking about the nature of target groups thorough survey

records, process documentation, community and parents were also done.

Curriculum and pedagogy related information collected from Program Quality

Head, Supervisors and Teachers were verified through the sources of syllabus,

weekly plans and daily plans, ECQUAS and participants observation.

Researchers visited the near by two primary school and held discussion with

teachers over there and children in standard 1st who had been mainstreamed

from NIDAN run centres. A question answers session with children was held in

classroom and children were asked to recite the poem and rhymes they learned

in NIDAN.