Year 2011-2012 has been a year of growing confidence as Lokmitra became more effective in supporting development of school.Β This has been in addition to continued engagement with diverse set of stakeholders on various aspect of elementary education for promoting systemic change. Year saw the initiation of a new program of Adolescent Education getting initiated in partnership with SDTT.
Long association with SRTT that led to nurturing of Education Program of Lokmitra, came to end. Grant support from Oxfam also shrank, as there was reduced support from Oxfam Novib to Oxfam India. These two developments led to lot of pressure on school education program. Still momentum was maintained, making use of all opportunities to engage. Text Book Review was one such opportunity and making suggestion to SSA/SCERT was done despite severe constraint of human resource. Prior mix of activity for promoting school improvement was further improved, drawing leaning from similar practices in other part of world. Thus new βActivity System for School Improvementβ is something that has potential for bringing widespread bottom up change.
Despite limitation of financial and human resources, Lokmitra is continuing to maintain its multi-dimensional and multi-level efforts in Uttar Pradesh. This is resulting in promotion of appropriate ideas and practices for improvement of schools and education system. Lokmitra is promoting common understanding, integrated efforts and collective responsibility among all stakeholders associated with childrenβs rights.
There has been major progress in providing pedagogy support to school teachers and Lokmitra functionaries on Hindi Language Teaching. Draft Booklet (Chunauti Se Sambhawna Tak) for Teachers on understanding issues of poor acquisition of competency was well received by staff and teachers. This formed the basis for developing appropriate Lesson Plan & worksheets. Later Text Books were of grade 1 to 5 were reviewed and shared with teachers, SSA & SCERT.
Adolescent Education Program got well initiated with the support of Doosra Dashak. Organising two month Residential Camp of Adolescent Girls and Boys was a new activity and all hurdles in this activity were effectively managed. School teachers were invited to Camp for exposure.
Year saw some good outcome of earlier effort with School Dropout. Ms Neeta Maurya, one of such girl, who got support from Lokmitra in year 2000, joined Lokmitra in July 2012 through selection process. She is in 3rd year of her Graduation. Β In another instance, Mr. Narendra, who was supported in primary school days in his study and encouraged to become of children in raising their concern and who was later selected by UNICEF to participate in βJunior-8β Summit at Rome in 2009, has joined Lokmitra as Support Teacher.
Anticipating that SMC needs to be reconstituted next year and keeping in mind that there has been much anomaly in formation due to no proper orientation of teachers and lack of clarity on membership, Lokmitra initiated consultation and advocacy by end of year 2012. This culminated in state level event of Basic Shikhsa Manch in March 2013.Β Meanwhile there has been good outcome of long effort when government passed order for ensuring enrolment and HH Survey of OoSC before the start of new session.
Two major innovative practice evolved by Lokmitra, namely that of Parent Association and Teacherβs Learning Forum continued to prove its relevance in post RTE changed scenario. Even though there was no major progress in terms of their reach out or effectiveness, idea maintained its relevance and moved in discourse at state and national level as important approach for bringing about systemic and widespread change.