Competitive brilliance

GP contests offer independent, transparent, out-of-school, and curriculum-linked evaluation of children's current math learning levels

- ANIL SWARUP

I was in Bengaluru last week and attended the local chapter meeting of the Nexus of Good. One of the presentations was by Ashok Kamath, Chairman of Akshara Foundation. Ashok and his team have been focusing on improving early math education in the government school system for over a decade and they have a model that addresses all stakeholders - their model is called Ganitha Kalika Andolana (GKA). Ashok spoke about one part of this model - on community engagement and this was an eye-opener for me. It was truly an andolana.

For a programme to be sustainable well beyond the organisation implementing it, every stakeholder needs to recognise its potential, take ownership of its outcomes and continue to implement it long after the exit of the original programme implementers from the geography. In other words, it needs to become 'socially desirable'. Unless the locus of control moves from the supply side to the demand side (parents, SDMC members, education volunteers and gram panchayat leaders), the quality of schooling will not improve. Which is why, people collaborations are the nub of Akshara Foundation's community-centric initiatives.

The Gram Panchayat Math Contest is a first-of-its-kind community initiative in India to encourage all concerned stakeholders to push for enhancing the quality of teaching and learning of mathematics, across the education system. These contests are an independent, transparent, out-of-school, curriculum-linked evaluation of children's current math learning levels.