Sahay Foundation, in the spirit of its objective, endeavored to contribute to the education system to improve livelihood opportunities for first generation learners. Their interactions with a cross section of teachers indicated a shortage of teachers in government aided schools, especially in the subjects, English, Science and Mathematics. Sahay Foundation chose a high school in a village in 24 Parganas (south) district, to identify specific areas that needed attention for building capabilities for livelihood. It was learnt that of the 2200 students, enrolled in that school, a substantial percentage were first generation learners. It was also learnt that after two years of disruption in schooling due to the pandemic, they were facing a challenge of high rate of absenteeism. Students were suffering from lack of concentration and low confidence in facing exams.
Sahay Foundation launched Sahay Path: Arekrakom Pora, a workshop-based activities and events primarily for the students of classes V and VI. This initiative aimed at adopting innovative pedagogical methods for overcoming the general apathy among the students towards school curriculum, developed during prolonged pandemic induced lockdowns and for increasing motivation and self-confidence among them. Termed as Arekrokom pora, the pedagogy sought to create an environment that would induce the students to enjoy learning with fun.
Arekrakom Pora: An Overview
The project was given a cheerful name, “Arekrakom Pora”, or in translation, “another kind of studying”. The program was inaugurated in September, 2022 with a daylong fest, called ‘Ananda Utsab’, at Jayatala High School. A large section of Students of classes VI and VII participated in various competitions like drawing, storytelling, story making, story reading etc.
January 2023, onwards, weekly workshops for students of classes V and VI were conducted on pilot basis. The target was to reduce school drop outs and increase enthusiasm and motivation for school curriculum.
For the design and implementation of this program, Sahay Foundation collaborated with Educhange Foundation, a consultant in the education sector.
Through this highly interactive and participative project, the students of class 6 at Jayatala High School, Baruipur were engaged in a specially curated curriculum based cultural workshops under four broad themes – theatrics, dance, art and craft, and recitation. The topic for each theme were selected from their text/course book, which was a chapter from their syllabus in subjects like English, Bengali, Science. The students in each class were divided into groups of 25-30.
One theme along with the selected subject is assigned to each group (for example, Theatrics for group A, Recitation and English for group B, etc.) Each groups engage in several aspects of the workshop. For example, in Theatrics the students engage in four aspects under the broad theme- acting, supportive acting, and backstage management. In the final week, through a presentation all the students showcase what they have learned during the workshop.
FINDINGS
Significant improvement was noted in the attitude of students towards classes as well as rise in the attendance in school since our first session of workshop conducted in January. First four weeks show an exponential increase in the regular attendance of participants in every category of workshops since the start of the sessions. Initially, out of 150 children, around 20 to 30 children started to come to school and participate in the workshops on regular basis. At the end of the three months workshop session percentage of regular attendance almost reached 70 percent.
The experiment gives us the confidence to expand our horizon and developing need specific learning pedagogies in future