It is December 13. A sunny cold day on a terrace in Mustafabad in north east Delhi: Eleven year old Gulistan is trying to read. Her eyes are downcast and her voice is very low as she mumbles and tries to decipher letters and words. She does not go to school. Her friend, Asma is a serious looking girl. She looks older than Gulistan. She too tries to read in a very soft voice. Very few words are audible: ‘chat…ghar…par.’ Both these children attend a Pratham bridge course. Neither can read.

LEARNING to read is the first and most essential step for education. Without being able to read a child cannot progress further in any school or educational programme.

According to the government, of the approximately 200 million children in the age 6 to 14 in the country, about 35 million children are out of school (National Plan of Action: India 2003). With continuing efforts at the central, state and local levels, the push towards universalization of primary education is intensifying. Nevertheless, despite more and more children coming to school and high and increasing enrolment rates, dropout from primary schools remains alarmingly high. Official government figures state that on average, of every 10 children who enter formal school in class I, only six complete the primary school stage (UNDP 2000).

Dropout from primary school happens for a variety of reasons. One major reason is low learning levels. Studies done in DPEP (District Primary Education Programme) show that poor academic achievement is endemic to the Indian primary education system. Available estimates of children who are in school indicate that only 30% can read stories fluently (Pratham Rapid Assessment 2003.)

Children begin to lag behind academically from the early grades and then eventually drop out of school by the end of or during the primary stage. On the one hand, many children do not make adequate progress in the early grades, and on the other, the content and pace of the curriculum (as mandated by the state government) in class III and IV accelerates rapidly, making ‘catching up’ difficult. It is not unusual to have large numbers of children complete the primary school stage in class IV or V without being able to read or write fluently or do simple arithmetic computations.

We insufficiently realise that many children, especially from economically disadvantaged families and communities, are first generation learners. The adults in the household are often uneducated. There is not enough support, space, opportunity, time, interest or inputs at home for the child’s learning to be supported and strengthened so that he/she can be ‘successful’ in the formal school system.

 

 

On the school side, the Indian primary education system is based on several key assumptions: (i) Children enter the formal school system in class I. (ii) Children attend school regularly and continuously. (iii) Children in each grade master the content and competencies laid down for that grade level by the state government curriculum (as represented by the textbook).

For many Indian children, these assumptions are misplaced. Whether government or private, school systems in India do not have any inbuilt mechanisms to provide supplemental help to children who progress at a slower pace than mandated by the state curriculum. Elite and middle class parents organize this extra help to strengthen children’s learning through tuition and other classes. Poor parents cannot afford this extra supplement. Thus, if children begin to fall behind in the early grades, there is no provision within the school system to help them. As the national push to universalize primary education gathers steam, it is likely that the effort will bring more children into the school system who will need sustained effort and resources and ‘accelerated learning’ techniques to help them ‘catch up’, stay in school and succeed.

 

 

The frustrations: Pratham’s experiments with accelerated learning grew out of frustration with our own work.¹ There were at least four sources of frustration:

* Pace of learning gains and guaranteed results. We had been working mainly with two types of children – those currently not in school (never been to school or dropouts) and those who are currently in school but are well behind where they should be according to their age and grade in terms of learning. In order to have a reasonable chance to move forward in the education system, both kinds of children need to ‘accelerate’ to catch up. Children in Pratham programmes were making progress, but their learning gains were neither dramatic nor predictable.

* Effective use of available time. We were aware that we were not using available time in the most effective way. The school calendar as well as the calendar followed by families and communities has many discontinuities because of festivals and holidays.² Available chunks of time for teaching are in the July-September period and then again in the December to February period just before school exams. While children in Pratham programmes were learning, the gains were often lost between teaching periods.

* Transfer of teaching-learning know-how. Pratham instructors are local young people – often products of the schools that they are trying to strengthen. We were concerned about transmission loss in the process of transfer during training. Although Pratham’s training model emphasizes on-the-job help through trainer-monitors, the work in slums, villages and even schools, of monitoring and supervision is limited by the diffuse nature of the programme activities. This puts severe constraints on ensuring that all that is delivered in training is absorbed and used on the ground. Often instructors relapse into using old methods in a crude way.

* Not enough effect on government systems, especially on teaching learning processes and outcomes. Pratham efforts are large scale, unusual among NGOs. However, the 220,000 children served by Pratham in 2002-03 is a very small number relative to the size of the national problem. Pratham has always aspired to catalyze larger efforts and to impact the governmental system through a demonstration effect of cost-effective solutions. These efforts have been partially successful. The terminology of ‘remedial education’ and short term ‘bridge classes’ has become a part of SSA documents and education policy literature in general. It is also true that Pratham has been able to create partnerships with various governments to deliver these services. But, in the past, the burden of delivery has fallen on Pratham while the government remained a willing but passive partner.

We were aware that acceleration in learning was critical for children’s further progress. Learning had to be strong and durable, and achieved with considerable predictability and at a fast pace even under constraints of poorly educated human resources available in slum communities. If this could be demonstrated, the impact making ability of Pratham would multiply many-fold given our presence on a relatively large scale in most major cities of India.

 

 

The experiments: For the first few years in Pratham (1994 to 1998) we tried methods and materials used by school systems. However, as our impatience and frustration grew, we began to experiment with different approaches in teaching and learning.³ Three years ago in Maharashtra we decided to start with a ‘story’ as a text for learning to read. A small storybook based on Shivaji was created. Shivaji’s childhood is a part of the state government’s history textbook for class III. Tales about him are recounted in every Maharashtrian household.

The method used was the same as in the textbook except that we started with a story and did not worry about the sequence in which the consonants or vowel signs came. We did not limit the number of consonants and vowel signs to be taught in the beginning. But, each page of the story actually involved an increasing number of alphabets and matras.

This method generated a lot of new interest among teachers. But it needed a lot of practice with worksheets. The 10 page Shivaji storybook was accompanied by a 60 page workbook. The method resulted in good reading-writing achievement in four months. This was visible in the pilot area – Ralegaon block of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra. But it still needed considerable training. The Pratham Gujarat group adapted the ‘Shivaji’ primer method and accompanying worksheets to fit the Gujarati context. There we used the story of the movie Lagaan, which is set in Kutch, a part of Gujarat affected by the massive earthquake in 2001.

Both these attempts led to more assured results. However, replication required a lot of effort and there was no ‘overnight’ visible change. Though an improvement over the past, it was not yet the ‘magic wand’ that we wanted.

 

 

In late 2001, in North India, we used the ‘word approach’. Starting with simple words without matras, children moved forward by recognizing alphabets and then mixing-matching. Gradually, matras were introduced. Old words, new words and progressively variety of simple sentences using familiar and unfamiliar alphabets and words were used. Three months after this method was adopted, a city-wide assessment of reading skills was conducted. Close to 1500 children were tested in a single day, one by one. Two important observations were made that day:

i) Children who read the easy paragraph with stopping and struggling felt they could not handle the more difficult paragraph. Many claimed that they had not yet learnt words with matras. Yet when coaxed to read the story they were able to navigate much of the text, although with difficulty. This surprised us and the children. They looked around, sometimes shyly and occasionally triumphantly.

ii) Children could propel themselves through the stories even if they did not read fluently or know all the matras. The clues for reading were embedded in the context, and the meaning and narrative created the desire to read. Once children started on a story it was often difficult to get them to stop.

 

 

From this exercise we learnt that we were holding children back by giving them a text that was easy, when in fact left on their own with some encouragement, they were trying a more difficult text if they thought that it was worth reading. It seemed clear that we needed a more hands-off method which exposed children to different kinds of text. We could also see that children actively constructed meaning as they attempted to read; their reading effort was helped by comprehension.

In September 2002, Professor Jalaluddin, an acknowledged expert in literacy, described his use of the traditional chart of the barakhadi as a means of coding and decoding words. He said that he had success with school-going children when taught by properly trained instructors who worked in a systematic way. His work showed that children could read and write in a matter of three months using his method. This had been tried and tested in several hundred schools of West Bengal and Bangladesh.

We began to think that if we focused solely on reading as an independent activity, leaving aside writing for now, there could perhaps be more rapid progress. Our interactions with children suggested that when they are engaged in a variety of activities that have implicit interconnections, they make the connections and these snowball into a larger skill. A new technique was evolved using the integrated approach to learning. Treat it like a game, where you begin to play from the first day and learn the rules of the game later.

 

 

The first positive feedback was when Zubeida, a young Pratham trainer in Delhi, reported that out of 108 children who could not read, 32% started reading in a month when she followed the integrated method. But neither the experiment nor the data was conclusive. Nevertheless, in the monthly North India group meeting, various team leaders were asked to further experiment with the technique. A month later, in October, the Patna group came back excitedly talking about children learning to read rapidly. Another young lady, Sujata, who had experimented said, ‘I am not sure how, but we did all these activities and the children seemed to "pluck" something out of the air, and they had learnt!’ Sunita’s words were probably the most perfect observation about how children were learning.

In early December 2002, we decided to refine the technique and simultaneously create a video-record of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in a span of one month. The intense process involved about 21 days of actual class time. The results of this experiment in the Mustafabad area of East Delhi can be seen in the film ...And Now I Can Read.⁴ The experiment was validated by a market research agency. There were many shortcomings, which were corrected later, and a cold wave struck Delhi right in the middle of the experiment. Yet, the video record of the progress made by children startled everyone who saw it.

Children starting at different levels of reading ability had progressed to different but higher levels of reading ability in 21 days. Those who did not even know the alphabets were reading sentences haltingly and those who could read words only with difficulty but could not read sentences fluently graduated to good reading. And they were very confident and smiling.

Now it is January 16. The terrace in Mustafabad is still sunny but colder. Gulistan is shy and still reads softly but her head is held higher and there is a confidence in her voice. She reads with her finger on the page, ‘ghar…aap…atta hai. Hath gha...dha…kar khana khata hai.’ There are a few mistakes in her reading but she can move through the paragraph easily. Asma is actually smiling as she reads fluently today: ‘Yahan aam ka ped hai. Kuch aam bada hai. Kuch aam chota hai.’ She puts down the paper and smiles triumphantly once again.

The progress in the 21 day period was a strong indication of the kind of rapid pace that was possible. We have now come to the conclusion that an average child being taught by an average teacher would take no more than 4-6 weeks to become fluent in reading. At the same time, children begin to write by themselves, expressing their thoughts in a crude way.

We experimented purely on the basis of what we observed among children. We saw that children learn to play the entire game and not its parts and we translated this observation into the ‘integrated’ learning exercise of saying, doing, reading, and writing.

 

 

The technique: To start off, each child, one by one, is asked to read. The assessment is very simple. The child is shown an easy paragraph with four simple sentences.⁵ If the child has difficulty in reading this paragraph, he is shown a set of common words and asked to read any four or five words of his choice. If he cannot manage words, then he is shown a set of letters and asked to read any of his choice. The categorization of children’s current level follows logically: if the child can read the paragraph easily, he is termed as a ‘paragraph’ child. He is then shown a short one-page story. If he can navigate the story with ease and fluency then he is categorized as a ‘story’ level child. Those who can cope only up to word level are called ‘word’ level children. The ‘letter’ and ‘nothing’ categories follow respectively.

 

 

The assessment tools and process are simple and easy to administer. The distribution of children across the different categories is also easy to understand. Before starting to work with a group of children, it is imperative that the instructor (whether a local volunteer or a qualified teacher) sits with each child alone for a few minutes and urges the child to read. The one-on-one interaction between the teacher and individual children is critical: once the instructor has heard every child read or try to read, she is aware of who is stumbling at which stage and why.

Four main activities are conducted daily. The first is reading stories aloud (with finger pointing at words as story is read aloud). Next, are exercises with the barahkhadi chart (this is a chart with vowels and consonant sounds in a grid form). The third activity involves playing word games with similar sounding words. The last activity is called ‘kuch bhi bolo, kuch bhi likho’ (talk about something, write about something). It is designed to make children think on their own, develop the confidence to express their thoughts orally in class and attempt to put down their own thoughts on paper.

 

 

Through all of this, the instructor has three major tasks: first, to set herself up as the role model for reading. Her clear pronounciation, diction and reading style, facilitate and encourage children to read like her. Second, she has to focus on children who are struggling to make progress, tailor activities to help them move ahead. Third, she has to encourage and coax children to read, write and think on their own, only guiding and nudging when needed.

The time taken for these exercises is an hour and a half daily, though the division of time across different activities varies. In the early days, more time may be spent on word exercises and barahkhadi activities. By day 15, children may spend more time reading and writing on their own.

 

 

The results: Since January 2003, more than 250000 children in Pratham programmes have learnt to read using this method. In addition, there are children in government schools who have learned using the same approach. The technique has been tried in different parts of India with different languages and in different organizational settings.

The accompanying Table I gives a glimpse of the effectiveness of the accelerated reading programme.

 

 

TABLE I Samples of Reading Data From Around the Country: Pratham and Non-Pratham Programmes
	Reading levels (Others implementing)	Delhi MCD schools		Gujarat summer camps		Bangalore summer camps		Jodhpur community programme		Mokhada-Igatpuri (Maharashtra 2 rural blocks)		Urban-Assam SSA		Lucknow: learning guarantee schools
		Pratham balsakhis Duration: 1 month April 2003		Pratham balsakhis Duration: 2 months April-May 2003		Pratham volunteers Duration: 2 months April-June 2003		Pratham Duration: 2 months Aug-Oct 2003		Feb-April 2003 Govt. teachers Duration: 2 months		July-Aug 2003 NGOs + Govt Duration: 6 weeks		Pratham balsakhis Duration: 3 months Oct ’03-Jan ‘04
		% of children		% of children		% of children		% of children		% of children		% of children		% of children
		Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final	Baseline	Final
Readers	Story Easy para	21	57	5 9	34 22	8	54	1 12	39 25	50	88	0 0	26 19	0 13	75 16
	Word	22	20	17	21	37	37	20	23	26	12	30	23	13	8
Non- Readers	Letter Nothing	33 24	16 7	30 40	18 5	28 27	7 2	31 35	13 0	16 8	0 0	32 30	24 7	35 38	1 0
	Total children	15901	15138	6182	5819	6493	6493	2245	2173	17064	20564	3964	3743	1341	1281

The spread: The Pratham network of direct teaching-learning programmes is spread over 30 cities and nine rural districts in the country. By January 2003, the basic elements of the approach and technique were in place. Immediate experimentation and piloting began across the network. All key people in leadership positions, trainer-monitors and instructors became engaged in understanding how acceleration in learning could be generated and sustained. Materials were quickly developed and tested in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati and Kannada. Each region learnt from others’ experiences in teaching-learning, assessment, training and communication, and organizational strategies.

Pratham’s in-school remedial programmes as well as community-based learning support initiatives began to use this accelerated reading method with encouraging results. Bridge courses, where the need for acceleration is most acute, switched to using the new innovation. By mid-May, all Pratham summer camps in Gujarat, Bangalore and North India were entirely focused on improving children’s reading. Taking stock in July, we found that over 150,000 children had participated in what was being called the ‘Read India’ programme since January.

The innovation changed every aspect of our functioning. Training took on a different form: all Pratham people – trainers, administrators and instructors took up teaching-learning. The new leadership team consisted of those who had success with children and were also good communicators. Clear and simple communication (orientation and regular feedback) became the hallmark of transferring the know-how to others.

A basic maxim in Pratham now is that nobody can train anybody else unless they have successfully enabled at least 25 children to read. Assessment has above all increasingly become central in understanding and shaping our own work at every level. But, the need for and ability to run time-bound and outcome oriented programmes is much higher today.

 

 

The catalytic effect: The new innovation accelerated children’s reading. It sharpened our effectiveness in enabling children to learn quickly and improved capacities in our direct programmes. Even more importantly it opened up new opportunities for influence and collaboration. Among our founding principles is that Pratham has to be a catalyst in strengthening and improving the existing school system. Since 1994, we had worked alongside with the government and often within the school system itself in many cities. On different issues, we had influenced policy at the national, state and local levels. However, in terms of changing the teaching-learning practices in school, our role was limited to our own direct delivery systems.

 

 

With the accelerated reading programme, new horizons opened up. The best example of Pratham’s catalytic effect is from Maharashtra. Since 2002, there have been Pratham direct programmes in 10 cities around Maharashtra (not including Pune and Mumbai). In every city Pratham teams were working directly with 1000 to 2000 children. Within Pratham, this 10 city programme was seen as a demostration model – where district officials and schools could see for themselves how time-bound and outcome oriented programmes could be run at a local level by community volunteers. In some cases, these programmes were run in the schools and in others in the community. In all cases, external agencies, institutions and individuals were invited to independently assess and ‘validate’ results generated by the Pratham teams.

In February 2003, Pratham persuaded the Maharashtra government to try the reading technique with the government school teachers. Two backward tribal blocks (Mokhada in Thane and Igatpuri in Nasik) were chosen for pilots. In both blocks, only 50% of children in government schools from class II to V could read stories.⁶ The rest of the children were the focus of the reading programme. As the first step, the ‘kendra pramukhs’ (cluster resource centre coordinators) met and the reading technique was explained. The CRCs were encouraged to try the technique in their own classes in their own school. In ten days, having tried the technique, they met again. Their experiences had been very encouraging and they decided to extend the approach and technique to all the schools under them.

By mid-April, the results were in. Over 85% of children were reading in these schools. Teachers, parents and children were thrilled with the visible and rapid progress. Apart from providing the know-how about the technique and materials, Pratham’s contribution to the effort was in the form of two young people for each pilot to move around the block, ensuring that motivation remained high and that the work progressed.

 

 

Emboldened by the success of this pilot, we initiated dialogue with all district officials (CEOs of districts, education department officials, zilla parishads) about the potential of such an approach to visibly and quickly change the basic level of learning in zilla parishad (government) schools across the state. It was possible to have every child in Maharashtra reading fluently within the 2003-2004 academic year.

By September 2003, 30 districts in the state had started one pilot block each using the Mokhada-Igatpuri case as an example. By November, district-wide implementation of the reading programme was in place in 17 districts with strong support from teachers, parents, district officials and the panchayati raj system. We are awaiting the final results to see how far ‘every child reading’ has been achieved in this academic year. Meanwhile, there is a great deal of discussion in zilla parishad schools about basic maths being done in the same ‘campaign style’ to accelerate a large number of children out of the backlog of low-learning. Simultaneously there is a growing and articulated need from teachers to enable children to write well and learn about content areas in science, history and geography.⁷

It has taken hardly a year to go from direct demonstration of the technique approach in ten cities in Maharashtra in Pratham’s programmes (reaching about 12,000 children), to a two block pilot with government school teachers working with 20,000 children to statewide implementation reaching close to 500,000 children. The pace and scale of the replication is unprecedented. The ‘reading revolution’ in Maharashtra has been conducted entirely by the government school teachers themselves.⁸

 

 

The possibilities: Catalytic work through the government school system in Maharashtra has been very successful. However, the question that arises is: will such an approach work in states like Uttar Pradesh or Bihar?

 

 

Looking closely at our experience in Maharashtra and thinking beyond, we are able to focus on a number of core elements that together display a strong potential for bringing about large-scale catalytic change:

* Existing structures and networks: These can be activated to work in a campaign style to bring about a rapid change in reading. In Maharashtra, with no acute shortage of teachers and with an existing structure (academic support structure through cluster coordinators and decision-making structure through zilla parishads), the government system was the vehicle for catalytic action. In other contexts, different networks can be activated – district and block level colleges, Mahila Samakhya network, cooperatives, panchayats, shiksha mitras, NGO networks, teacher’s associations, community-based village groups, self-help groups and so on.⁹

* People’s initiative, ownership and leadership: In exploring the possibilities of catalytic action and in transferring know-how to others, the issue of ownership and leadership is critical. Even in Maharashtra, we find that different people at different levels took the initiative and provided leadership. In some cases it was the block education officer or the kendra pramukh (cluster coordinator), in other districts it was the CEO or the zilla parishad chairperson. Although it was hard to predict who would come forward, it was absolutely certain that someone would. It is our firm conviction that there exists tremendous initiative among people that comes to the surface when a large-scale movement begins, especially when the movement is open, flexible and simple. This leadership is more powerful because it leads by doing and not by rhetoric.¹⁰

* Faith in people to deliver: Although this factor is hard to quantify, Pratham teams in Maharashtra, at all levels, firmly hold on to the conviction that common people (school teachers in Maharashtra) are the best to improve learning. This was an important factor in maintaining high levels of motivation and contributed significantly to the remarkable results.

 

 

Catalytic efforts are being attempted in Gujarat, and in cities of Rajasthan (Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer). In Bihar (Nalanda district) and Uttar Pradesh (Sultanpur district), the ongoing catalytic efforts have involved gram panchayats and local village level leaders in thinking and implementing local solutions for strengthening schools and improving children’s learning. All these efforts use reading as the first step.

 

 

The lessons: Pratham’s adventure with reading on a mass-scale is barely a year old. Yet there are many lessons that we have learned. First, we have proved to ourselves that time-bound, outcome-oriented programmes can be run on a mass scale. Second, having done it ourselves, we are more confident of convincing others that this can be done on a national scale. Third and most important, we have seen that a simplicity of approach is crucial. All aspects of the reading campaign are simple – assessment, setting objectives, accepting ownership, planning, technique, communication, training, materials, organizational structure for implementation and replication. Ordinary teachers, ordinary panchayats, ordinary parents and ordinary citizens can understand what to do, how to do it and what is to be achieved. Visible progress is appreciated by all participants and onlookers. Significant progress creates a natural desire for more progress.

The successful catalytic work in Maharashtra, and the attempts in Gujarat and Rajasthan have also convinced us that ordinary people can bring about dramatic change in the learning outcomes in the country. This is not a popular belief especially in the education establishment, even more so when we say that teachers can be strong agents of change. To facilitate this change, a great deal of work needs to be done at the organizational level, in terms of organization of teaching-learning at the school level, organization of academic support systems to the school and community support to assist and strengthen schools to achieve simple learning goals for all children.

At all levels of educational discourse and debate in the country, whether in national forums or in local meetings, ‘quality’ and ‘learning’ need to be demystified. The conceptualization of quality can be comprehensive and learning can be thought of as multi-dimensional. But its achievement must be planned in manageable and achieveable steps. Reading is only the first step. A child cannot move ahead without reading fluently. Every child reading, writing and doing basic arithmetic confidently will pave the way for a stronger foundation for more learning.

 

 

The way forward: Our adventure with basic reading has led us to think in many new directions. At a micro level, within our own direct demonstration programmes, we are now experimenting with the ‘Reading to Learn’ phase – how to enable a child to read a passage or a text with comprehension, mark words that she does not understand, ask questions and write well. As a supplement to actual teaching-learning, we believe children should have access to libraries and simple and affordable books in their community to sustain their interest.

At a macro level, whether at the state or national level, we are working hard to make ‘Reading India’ a reality. ‘Reading India’ implies that every child in India above the age of seven can read fluently and wants to read more and more. Our direct programmes will remain as demonstration sites. But much of our effort in the coming year will be focused on developing new avenues, mechanisms and partnerships for influencing local communities and school systems to accept ownership of children’s learning. Large scale campaigns are needed that come out of local efforts aiming at simple solutions with clear targets and visible outcomes.

 

Footnotes:

1. Pratham is a citizen’s initiative that is directly working for the universalization of primary education in 30 cities and 9 rural districts in nine states. Through our educational activities, we are in daily touch with over 200,000 children around the country. We believe that every child should be in school and learning well. To achieve this we work closely with government schools, and with individuals and institutions in every city. In many cities, Pratham initiatives are registered as independent public charitable trusts. Funds are received from a variety of sources including the corporate sector, government and individuals. (visit www.pratham.org for more information).

2. The school calendar in most parts of India has frequent interruptions thanks either to festivals or seasons. For example, the school year begins in June-July in many parts of the country. June-July-August in much of India is hit by monsoons. By September the festival season begins – Janmashthami, Ganapati, Dushera/Navratri, Diwali, Ramzan – and it stretches into November in some years. In the last two years, government schools in North India have often been shut for several weeks due to the extreme cold in December and January. School examinations are in March.

3. There are similar experiments in maths. But for the purposes of this paper, the focus is entirely on language and reading.

4. There are two films that document the Pratham reading technique and its impact on children. ‘…Now I Can Read’ is a film about out of school children in Mustafabad in north-east Delhi who are learning to read. ‘The Mokhada Tale’, a film shot in Mokhada block of Thane district in Maharashtra, documents the progress of school-going children learning to read.

5. For example: Ma ne halwa banaya. Sonu ne khaya. Monu ne bhi khaya. Bada maja aaya.

6. The simple assessment tool used in the reading programme helped to concretely diagnose the problem in schools. The simplicity of the tool and categories focused everyone’s attention on the problem on hand and helped to motivate people to quickly find a solution using the proposed reading package.

7. In Maharashtra, at the primary level, a majority of rural children go to zilla parishad schools. There are relatively few private schools. This is a feature worth noting. Children of affluent farmers as well as children of panchayat members are in the local government school. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in cities of Maharashtra or in other parts of the country where there are private schools in rural areas as well.

8. Readiness to focus on learning issues among teachers: Across the state, recent Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan surveys indicate that less than 5% children are out of school. With the vast majority of children in school, the focus has to shift to learning in order to retain children at least through the elementary cycle. In the last 10 years, large scale training of teachers has taken place every year to orient them towards effective teaching. Thus in a sense, the ground was ready to taken on learning as an agenda. The introduction of a simple goal in a short time frame to improve reading as a first step was relatively easy to accept.

9. MV Foundation’s remarkable work in activating teacher’s associations and unions to be a strong voice against child labour is a powerful indicator of the potential to turn existing groups and networks to think and act on new issues. The impressive network of community-based village groups in the Lok Jumbish districts is another possible partner for catalytic action.

10. The large scale involvement of people in the National Literacy Mission of the late 1980s and early 1990s is a good example of people’s initiative in recent times.