Monday, October 27, 2008

A survey - An action - A result

Namaste,

Many times we say our education system is wrong, Govt. is not doing anything for betterment of education, Govt. schools carry no standards, Teachers in Govt. schools are not interested in teaching or they don’t know teaching, this and that and etc., etc.

Yes, almost the above lines are right. But Govt. is trying to do as much as possible. But due to lack of interest or/and strictness in some officials in administration the problems are arising. These can be solved when the common citizens come into the seen, feel responsible for providing better, quality education to our young world.

In the elementary education sector, since 2005, ASER (Annual Status of Education Report) has been an interesting nationwide example of measurement of outcomes by local people. Each year, a massive effort is carried out across the country. This exercise, facilitated by Pratham, attempts not only to provide district level estimates of enrollment but also of the status of basic learning. Further, ASER involves over 500 organizations and close to 20,000 volunteers who visit more than 16,000 villages, over 300,000 households and close to 715,000 children. Using a common set of tools and a common sampling frame, in each rural district, a local group visits 30 randomly selected villages. Within each village, ASER volunteers meet all children (in the age group 3 to 16) from 20 randomly selected families. In each household, children are asked whether they go to school and if so what type of school. In addition, children of school-going age are asked to do a set of simple reading and arithmetic tasks.

In India, it is perhaps one of the largest initiatives focused on children in which local citizens participate each year to understand the progress (or lack of progress) in elementary education. ASER 2007 was released by the vice chairman of the Planning Commission in mid January this year.

NSS IIT Roorkee accompanied Pratham, an NGO in completing ASER 07 successfully in Haridwar district. This year almost whole survey will be done by NSS - IIT Roorkee in Haridwar district with the help of Pratham. Survey will be done on 8th & 9th Nov’08 and training for this will be given on 5th or 6th Nov’08.


Those interested in volunteering the ASER 08 can contact me(Naga M Reddy) on nagamreddya.ar@gmail.com, 09719278700 or Uttam Anand, 09897426765. As this survey happens all over India in all rural Districts in the 1st week of November, if someone is interested in volunteering the same at some other place then also you can contact me, I will forward your details to the respective persons.

For further information visit,

http://www.pratham.org/aser2006.php

http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/feb/edu-afteraser.htm#postnew

http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/feb/edu-aser3yrs.htm

http://www.indiatogether.org/2006/feb/edu-afteraser.htm#continue

your comments are invited and will be considered sportively.

with regards,

Naga M Reddy A,

General Secretary,

NSS - IIT Roorkee


1 comment:

Shank said...

Nice initiative - keep up the good work Naga!!