Thursday, December 08, 2005

 

Akshara - First Steps in the Read Bangalore Project

As I've mentioned here and here, Akshara Foundation has undertaken a project in association with the Karnataka State Department of Education for augmenting the reading skills of primary school children (in classes 2 to 7) in about 1,374 goverment primary schools in and around Bangalore.

Once the initial base-line assessments are done (i.e., assessments of the level at which the students are currently reading and processing language), Akshara expects that about 72,000 (of about 1,90,000) children in these schools will need remedial help to bring their language skills to where they should be for their age.

Last Saturday, Bhaskar, Akash, Surjo, Mandar, Kelly and I met with Col. Rajan and Mr. Ravi Kumar of Akshara Foundation to go over what they need in terms of volunteer help. At that meeting they gave us a broad-brush presentation which gave us an idea of the scale of the project, its objective, the number of schools and the number of children involved, the kind of teacher training that will be necessary in order for the project to be successfully executed (about 3,600 goverment teachers will need to be trained to teach the children language skills over a period of 45 days), and an idea of the kind of logistics involved.

Today I had another meeting with Col. Rajan and Mr. Ashok Kamat (a trustee on Akshara's Board) regarding the first steps in this project in which we can we involved. The steps I'm describing below are only those steps in which we, as volunteers, can be involved in. There are various other pieces of the puzzle that Akshara is working on separately.

The work that needs to be completed over the next 3 and 1/2 months can be divided into two discrete steps:

1. Data Collection: There are three kinds of data that need to be collected - School data, Teacher data and Student data. To begin with, the Karnataka State Department of Education will provide Teacher and Student data to Akshara which Akshara is accepting for the time-being.

School data, on the other hand, will be primarily collected by Akshara. This is where we, the voluteers, come in. Starting December 15, 2005, Akshara will need voluteers to go to each of the schools (addresses and directions will be provided by Akshara), stand there at the location with a GPS receiver (which will also be provided by Akshara) and figure out the exact GPS location (latitudes and longitudes) of that school so the location of every single school under the project can be pin-pointed on a map.

The city is divided into 9 education blocks (with 77 clusters), so it would be possible for voluteers to pick an area and go to all the schools in a couple of clusters, for example, rather than criss-crossing the city and going all over the place.

All this work can be done on weekends and holidays (the schools need not be open for this purpose). The deadline for this step of the project is January 31, 2006.

2. Data Entry: All the data that comes in (School, Teacher and Student) will need to be keyed into computers. A couple of you had asked me if data entry can be done at home on personal computers and I confirmed today that that is possible. Data entry can be done at home and the spreadsheets can be e-mailed to Akshara. Alternatively, data entry can also be done at any of the 9 block offices of Akshara where they have dedicated computers for this purpose.

Akshara anticipates that this phase of the project will begin February 1, 2006 and the deadline is 31, March 2006.

What we need to do now is to let Akshara know which of these two phases each of the voluteers is interested in. Please leave a comment on this post with your preferance and I'll tabulate it so Akshara has a clear idea of where they have help and where they need more.

Please comment.

Crossposted on Blogpourri.

Update 1: Just wished to clarify that after the completion of the two steps described above, there will be follow-up work in the data analysis and assessment areas. Many of you have expressed interest in those areas as well, and there is plenty of opportunity to be involved in that. Thanks.

Update 2: Global Voices has linked to this effort here. Thank you Global Voices.

Update 3: Anita Bora at Just a Little Something links to this post here. Thank you Anita.

Comments:
hi just a tip since you have been asked to ceate a job table. I created a social spreadsheet on numsum.com
Just search for the tag akshara and you will find it there. We could use it to collaborate easily. OTOH even basecamp would be very convenient
 
Thanks Akash, will check it out.
 
Hi Sujatha,

Count me in for doing the data collection and data entry. I can enter the data anywhere - block office or home. I was wondering if I can take part in the data analysis also.
 
sujatha, i must once again say that your enthusiasm in this intitiative is inspiring.

i would be interested in the data analytics part and the assessments/dipsticks part. i wont be able to contribute much for the next 3 months for reasons of logistics, as i've already told u.

all the best to blogbang with this intiative!
 
Yeah, since the jobs are mutually exclusive, we could be a part of both the intiatives as they do not seem to overlap.


Anyway if one has to choose a task (;-)) then I opt for Data Collection.
 
Hi,

My name is vasu. I came to your blog through Anita's blog. I would like to voulenteer for any help you might need.

To start with I live in Kasthuri Nagar adjoining banaswadi, HRBR layouot, Kamanahalli area of bangalore north east.

you can contact me directly at vasudevanss@gmail.com or at 9342579241 whichever is convinent.

good luck

vasu
 
Hi,

Count me in for data entry. If you're short of data collectors, I could do that instead. You can reach me at escriba@rediffmail.com

Anu
 
Good Initiative,
Count me in, definitely I can contribute good part of my weekends.
you can reach me at deepu_vastare@yahoo.com
 
Surjo, Jay, Vasu, Anu, and Deep, thank you so much. I can't tell you how thrilled I am with the response we've received so far.

Jay, of course you can be involved in both steps.

Mandar, look forward to your return and to working with you then. Please do keep in touch and let us know when you're back. And good luck on your trip!
 
Anu,

I tried to send an e-mail message to the address that you gave me, but I got a message delivery failure notice. Could you please let me know if you have an alternative e-mail address? Thanks.
 
Hi,

I'd like to help in the data entry and probably analysis later on.
 
Hey Vasu! Welcome aboard! Glad to have all the help we can get :o)
 
Sabarish, I've noted down your preferences.

All, I'll send a final spreadsheet to Col. Rajan later today.

Thanks.
 
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