The Akanksha School Project represents Akanksha’s first effort to work within the formal school system. It is an effort by Akanksha to extend its activities in the field of education, leveraging our experiences with less privileged children to improve the quality of learning in Municipal and Private Aided Schools. Specifically, we hope to provide inputs in the fields of teaching, extra-curricular activities, community support and infrastructure that will significantly enhance the learning opportunities for children in formal schools.

Objectives

The Akanksha School Project has the following objectives:
• Meet Akanksha’s four goals – education, good-time, self-esteem and preparation for a job – directly through the school system.
• Reach out to a wider community of children through a more scalable, lower cost model


Key focus areas

The Akanksha School Project will focus its efforts on four key areas:
• Improve the quality of learning in the schools by bringing in new teaching methodologies while adhering to the current school curriculum.
• Introduce extra-curricular activities (ECA) with enhanced curriculum to supplement classroom learning and provide opportunities for children to develop holistically.
• Work with communities to generate parent interest and involvement in education and resolve external barriers to learning.
• Supplement basic infrastructure to create a school environment that is more friendly and conducive to learning."

Models

Akanksha is piloting the following models for school reform:

1. Direct Intervention Model: Akanksha adopts a school with planned interventions in all 4 focus areas. The gaps that exist in the school from the aspects of teacher shortage, infrastructure gap, dedicated ECA teachers and building parents groups are filled in a partnership model and Akanksha staff are actually in the school.

2. Training Model: The focus is to work with the existing teachers of the Schools to help them in areas of Classroom Management and Teaching methodology. Trainers spend 3 hours a week with the Class teacher. This model gives us the opportunity to share best practices with the teachers from the formal schools and jointly build the classroom into a quality learning environment.