DISTRICT PRIMARY EDUCATION PROGRAMME GUJARAT
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ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING

Alternative Schooling is a non-conventional system to address the educational needs of the children the formal school is not able to reach.

The last quarter saw significant development in Alternative Schooling under DPEP, in Gujarat. Important decisions were taken during the last meeting of the Executive Committee, which paved the way for facilitating smooth implementations of the schemes for Alternative Schooling in Gujarat. The developments of this quarter have been as follow:

Alternative School Centres

District Back to School Bridge Course

General Gender

Banaskantha 60 23 Nil-

Panchmahal 281 14 Nil-

Dang 7 4 56

Total 348 41 56

 

• Enrolment

District Back to School Bridge Course

Boys Girls Boys Girls

Banaskantha 891 1419 - -

Panchmahal 3212 3418 - -

Dang 324 486 70 74

Total 4427 5323 70 74

• The posts of Alternative Schooling Instructors and Alternative Schooling Supervisors have been created in three project districts and recruitment has already been initiated.

• The Training Centre for training Alternative Schooling Instructors was established at the Block Resource Centre, Vav, Dist. Banaskantha, where all the future orientation programmes for AS will be organised. The first training programme was launched at the same venue on June 1, ’99, which was of one month duration. Every 1st, 11th and 21st day of the month (every 10th day), 50 pass out from training centre. By the end of August , 229 AS instructors have already passed out.

• The second Training Centre for training AS instructors was started on August 18, ’99 at Varahi, Dist. Banaskantha. 30 AS instructors passed out of training in the first batch of 18th September.

• The Pavagadh AS instructors training centre was started on 11th Sept. ’99, in dist. Panchmahals, in an old building. The centre will be shifted to new BRC building at Limkheda by November 1, '99.

• By end of October, ’99, it has been projected that from all the three training centres 400 AS instructors will pass out.

• In Dangs, during the Bridge- course for Alternative Schooling, 1600 migrating children were taught in 90 day programme from March-June ’99. The scheme was run in 90 centres.

•The Training Program For Alternative Schools (AS):

The resource persons are drawn out from the state office, district office, additional BRCs and CRC coordinators. They are all

specialists in their respective areas. A timetable has been drawn out for a 30 days programme. Each resource person has been informed about his or her time slot in advance. The entire course has been broken down thematically on a weekly basis. The course content of the of the training programme includes:

First Week: The focus is on building an understanding on conceptual issues.

• An introduction to alternative schooling in Gujarat

• The need for alternative schooling

• An introduction to AS strategies in Gujarat

• The organisational structure for AS in Gujarat

• Enrolment and retention of children at AS centres

• Gender sensitivity and education of the girl child

• Special focus on education of tribal children and children with disability

Second Week: the focus issues are Child Psychology and Educational Philosophy, which include:-

• Understanding children

• What helps children learn

• What are the processes of learning amongst children

• Methods that help children to learn

• Educational Psychology

• Educational Philosophy

• An introduction to methods of teaching for language, mathematics and environmental studies.

Third and Fourth Week: The focus is on class room transaction of the subject areas and progress of the child on a competency ladder.

After completing one month pre-service training, the AS instructors are put under 6 months field experience at their respective AS centres. During this period, apart from class-room teaching, the AS instructors are provided with necessary inputs through magazines and regular teleconferences organised by the SPO. This is followed by one month’s refresher training during which they would prepare various teaching and learning materials. Once they complete this, the AS instructors would go back to their respective AS centres for another 6 months of field training. They would execute whatever they have learned in the Training Centre. During the final phase of training the problems faced by the AS instructors would be sorted out. Thus, 15 months long training programme would adequately equip them with the AS teaching methods and enable them achieving the ultimate goal of DPEP.

Teleconference on Alternative Schooling

Alternative Schooling is one of the focus areas for the year 1999-2000.

Prime importance is given to implementation various Alternative Schooling schemes in the project districts. Keeping this fact in mind a teleconference was organised on May 13, ’99 on AS.

The questions posed in by the BRCCs and CRCCs, through phone and fax, were answered by the SPO Officers sitting on the panel for teleconference. Since all the questions could not be replied to during the teleconference, they were collected, and along with their relevant replies, were compiled in the form of a booklet, supplied subsequently to all the BRC co-ordinators.

All the CRC-co-ordinators had been provided with a module on Alternative Schooling, which was prepared by State Project Office. This had allowed all the CRC co-ordinators to study the subject and prepare these questions beforehand.

During this teleconference, ASPD and other officers from SPO fielded the questions. A video film in Bhawai -format, prepared by GIET, Ahmedabad based on the script written by principal, DIET, Banaskantha, was also shown during the teleconference. To demonstrate the success of Alternative Schooling, video on similar schooling centre in Haripura, Palanpur, was shown.

Apart from project districts the teleconference provided the non-DPEP districts with the basics of Alternative Schooling concepts its value and use.

Current Plan:

Seven pilot projects have been tried out and a plan for more than 25,000 out of school children through 1100 AS centres will be prepared and implemented. There may be continued involvement of NGOs in remote areas. Alternative schools for scattered hutment might also be considered.