Programs

Overview

In 1947, the government of India established public schools providing free education to all children until high school. A sound education policy thus required multiple layers of leaders tasked with ensuring and overseeing school quality.

Even though policies push for hands-on learning, without a set standard for measuring success, the system often relies on metrics like enrollment, attendance, and pass rates, leading to an emphasis on exams and memorization-based learning.

The Solution

The Adhyayan Education Foundation bridges this gap by training and developing government school leaders, cluster and system leaders to transform and develop their assigned cluster of schools, even in the remotest parts of India.

School teachers

build the foundation of quality education. AQEF works one-on-one with teachers, school volunteers and librarians to observe class sessions, and provide feedback.

Cluster leaders

oversee groups of 5-10 schools to create plans, support teachers and facilitate conversations and knowledge sharing between teachers.

System leaders

oversee blocks of 100-200 schools or a district comprising over 1,000 schools, convening meetings between cluster leaders, solving challenges and reviewing data to improve on learning systems.

Cluster & System Leaders

monitor and provide real-time support to teachers in building best practice models for education.

State Governments

benefit from engaged leaders on the ground, adopting systems and processes to drive collaboration and improvement; enabling Adhyayan to exit sustainably.

Theory of Change

Schools thus show measurable improvement in teaching and learning.

We build the capacity of school and system leaders to set government schools in their communities on the path to holistic system improvement

Leaders begin to take ownership of school improvement and commit to providing quality education to the children of their community.

We build the capacity of school and system leaders to set government schools on the path to holistic system improvement

Our Programs

A nation’s prosperity is intricately tied to the quality of education it provides to its youth. Unfortunately, a substantial portion of India’s children are being left behind. The consequences of substandard education echoes across generations, perpetuating cycles of poverty and restricting the full realization of individual potential.

The latest ASER findings report that a mere 11% of Class 1 children can read a grade-level text and just 15% of Class 2 children can read an age-appropriate paragraph. What’s even more worrying is that even by the time they reach Class 8, 27% of children cannot read a Class 2-level text. The gap between education and employability also continues to undermine India’s demographic dividend: a recent AICTE-UN report shows that 54% of India’s youth are not job-ready.

At Adhyayan, enhancing the quality of education is not just a moral imperative; it is an investment in the future of our nation, fostering empowered, informed, and resilient citizens who can contribute meaningfully to society.

ElevateED

Strengthening leadership and governance towards school improvement (Goa, Tripura, Arunachal, Nagaland)

This program enables leaders at all levels to:

Develop a common and measurable understanding of holistic school quality across stakeholders
Measure the performance of schools against validated quality benchmarks
Use the data to begin to work in peer communities of leaders (at all levels) to support schools in a targeted manner to develop capacity to lead change
Validate improvement
Document learnings and best practices
Activate networks of local stakeholders (volunteers, public libraries, local industry etc.) to create an ecosystem of support around schools

Ecosystem Strengthening

To ensure each child has a holistic educational experience, it is crucial to galvanize the larger ecosystem of concerned adults who can contribute to improving schools. This includes representatives from local industries who can offer career guidance, village librarians who can read aloud to children, and local volunteers who can provide various forms of support.

While private schools often draw on a variety of stakeholders to enrich the learning experience of children; we aim to support government school complex leaders to lead 5 – 10 primary schools to activate the ecosystem around their schools and draw in every single adult who can contribute towards its improvement.

Abhyaas

Adhyayan has set an ambitious goal of reaching 100,000 schools by 2030. We recognize that achieving this requires collaboration, especially as we focus on smaller and remote states that rank in the lower half of the national quality index.

To accomplish our objective, we began by observing and learning from organizations and governments in other states engaged and committed to systems improvement. Working in a collaborative environment our emphasis lies in sharing our learning with those who would like to adapt our processes and methodology.

The findings led to the birth of Abhyaas, a collaborative learning platform hub for educational leaders in India. The platform aims to advance education quality nationwide by promoting good governance and leadership. Abhyaas means practice and reflects the commitment to continual knowledge refinement, offering a freely accessible repository of practical insights.

Program Aim

Other organizations for scaling school improvement
Governance administrators in the public education system.
Decision-makers in funding agencies
NGOs, IAS officers, ministry-level officials
Developers of national or international platforms