Spring Break
Students Meet with Pratham to Discuss Education in India
By Radha Ruparell (OE), Contributing Writer
Issue date: 2/4/08 Section: News
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For those who think that non-profit is a fluffy topic, think again! For starters, take Pratham's ultimate objective - to eliminate illiteracy in India by 2009. This means reaching out to 60 million children who currently do not know how to read or write, with a $20 million budget, all by next year! Anyone willing to take on that job after graduation? While Mr. Taneja acknowledged, with a chuckle, that this timeline was too aggressive, he also remarked that it was the sheer audacity of the goal that motivated himself and others at Pratham to reach for the impossible. And it has worked! In fact, Pratham has now educated millions of children in 21 states across India.
So how do you create a low-cost, scaleable education model that can be replicated all across India when you don't have a great deal of money, teachers, or motivated children? Well, like most tough problems, the solution here is a mix of art and science. The art here is being creative and letting go of old paradigms. For example, Pratham recognized that one of the biggest costs in educating children was the initial expense of constructing school buildings. So to minimize fixed costs, Pratham decided to leverage resources that were already out there - i.e. classes were held in a community member's kitchen, underneath a tree outdoors, or in any open space they could find.
But what do you do about the human resource constraint? After all, as Mr. Taneja said, 50% of the public school classes don't even have instructors due to a shortage of teachers.
Instead of going to teachers colleges, Pratham responded to this problem by training women from the local community in basic reading, writing and math curriculum. Not only did this address the teacher problem, but it also empowered these women, many of whom were single mothers who had previously been socially and economically excluded from society. The community-based model also works in addressing the challenge of student absenteeism. After all, if a kid doesn't show up to school, the local teacher knows where he lives and can personally hunt him down!
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