Constituency Served

rural government primary and upper primary school children

Details of Work

Azim Premji Foundation works with the Karnataka government to implement joint initiatives for the universalisation of elementary education. It is involved in creating effective and scalable models that significantly improve the quality of learning in schools and ensure satisfactory community ownership in their management. It has implemented the learning guarantee programme in seven districts of north-east Karnataka covering 1900 primary and higher primary schools. The programme is designed to identify schools that demonstrate guarantee of learning, analyze the success factors and communicate these to the other schools. The programme rewards schools that enable children to acquire expected competencies while ensuring universal enrolment and attendance. The accelerated learning programme implemented in 1000 primary schools in north-east Karnataka, focuses not only on the child who needs supplementary teaching but is also particularly directed towards those who are potential drop-outs or have just been mainstreamed into the formal schools through short and long-term bridge courses. The Foundation s technology initiatives aim to facilitate the universalisation of elementary education through the innovative use of computers. This is achieved by placing computers and appropriate curricular software content in local language, thereby providing an opportunity for joyful, interactive and self-paced learning. Of the 90 community learning centres in 11 districts of Karnataka, 18 are in and around Bangalore. By July 2003, 135 more centres will be set up covering all of Karnataka.