1. Improving Primary Education
Ensuring basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills for all
S. Chockalingam
Adit Ravi
Neeraja Abhyankar
Satya Vandana Gorle
Sahil Sharma
Team :
Nirbhaya1729

2. The Problem
India has 191 million primary students(2001) but the output of education is a
cause for big concern as can be seen from the graphs.
Teacher
Involvem-
ent
• Low motivational levels of teachers
• High Teacher absenteeism – 25% in 2003[2]
• Poor performance of existing teachers
Social
factor
• Parents’ reluctance due to socio-economic factors
• Poor Student retention (58% drop out)
• Socio Cultural factors- Girls’ education
Quality of
education
• RTE – cause of downfall in the quality of education?
• Drop in learning levels as can be seen from the graphs
• Highly relaxed criteria for passing students.
Paucity of
teachers
• A lack of respect for the teaching profession
• Low teacher salaries- A myth [3]
Systemic
flaws
• Inadequate teacher accountability
• Lack of proper monitoring
[1]
[1]
All figures in %

3. Solution Strategy
High teacher absenteeism – Monitoring system
• Weekly monitoring of teacher attendance by locally employed ground
personnel
• Evaluation of teacher performance by Village Education Committee
Student retention at school and high drop out rates
• Strict o itori g of stude ts’ atte da ce with regular i ti atio of
parents
• Attendance based monetary benefits as incentive to send children to
school ( example : subsidy on ration items)
• Making school enjoyable for students ( example : Interactive learning)
• Monitoring the quality of mid-day meal
• Awareness drives in the pre-enrollment phase
Paucity of teachers – Voluntary teachers
• Recruiting motivated and socially responsible professionals and
graduates
• Involving part-timers like housewives and retired people on a slot
based system

4. Solution Strategy
Quality of education
• Creating and cataloging a large online database of teaching learning
material. Using interactive learning material in the class
• A student mentor system explained later (using college students)
• Monthly ASSET [4] like standardized tests for effective evaluation
• Monthly auditing of each school (like Paheli [5] for villages)
People empowerment
• An augmented SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) [6] Village Education
committee(VEC) for education related decisions
• Community empowerment and involvement by including the parent
body and others in a large local body called Lok Shiksha Sabha, which
will play an active role in identifying issues
Overall evaluation
• A detailed feedback and audit system to ensure parent satisfaction,
good infrastructure, services and facilities

5. Central Team
Data
Analysis
Team
IT
Team
Feedback
Team
Economics
Team
Organizing
Team
Ground
Personnel Lok Shiksha Sabha (LSS)
(Regular Teachers,
Parents, Voluntary teaching staff)
Student
Mentors Part timers
Voluntary teaching
staff
Augmented SSA VEC
(Village Education
Committee)
Organizational Structure

6. Details of the model – A model for 15 schools
The different organs and their functions:
Ground personnel ( 2 per school => 30 for 15 schools)
•Collect daily attendance of students and teachers
•Check quality of mid-day meal every week
•Intimate parents of frequent absentees of the week and record reason for absence (
say 50 absentees per school per day => approx. 3 student visits per day per personnel)
•Submits the above reports and test reports to the Data Analysis Team at Block Office
Data analysis team (5 data analysts at the Block Office)
•Maintain updated electronic database of students, parents, test reports
•Analyze reports periodically and make intuitive reports of attendance, performance to
be presented in the LSS (Lok Shiksha Sabha) meeting
•Inform teachers when their attendance falls in a week and record reasons for absence
IT Team
•Provides front end and back end support to the whole system ( ex – Maintaining the
computerized database)
• Makes a library of related online learning material for the students and make it
accessible to them

7. Details of the model – A model for 15 schools
Teaching staff
(a) Voluntary teachers: Recruiting motivated and socially responsible professionals and
graduates to work as teachers for periods of 3-6 months (successful example – Teach for India
[7] initiative ).These teachers go on awareness drives on education, related social issues like
education of girl child during the pre- enrollment phase.
(b) Part-time staff: Employ qualified people on a slot based system to address paucity of
teachers ( ex – educated housewives, retired people, unemployed graduates). They are paid
per slot.
(c) Student mentors ( at least 450 mentors for 15 schools):
• College students who are mentors for students in nearby schools
•They work as part of a credited course (say a course like the existing NSS)
•Student – mentor ratio of 5:1 to be maintained
Organising team:
•Student mentor managers (15 per block, stationed at the Block Office)
Manage the student mentors, collect monthly student status reports from them, make
individual reports based on them and a compiled report for all students to be submitted in
the LSS
•Teacher staff managers (5 per block, stationed at the Block Office):
Recruit voluntary teachers, part-time staff and schedule classes (example – allotting slots to
a part-timer when a teacher is absent)

8. Lok Shiksha Sabha
Members: All parents, augmented SSA VEC members, teaching staff, Principal
•Meets every month to decide the agenda of the monthly ASSA VEC meeting
•Goes through attendance reports, student status reports, audit reports, school test reports,
ASSET like test reports and holds discussions
•A parent – teacher meeting to discuss individual reports
•Forum for any form of complaints, issues, suggestions from parents and the system
Augmented Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Village Education Committee:
The decision making body which has the structure of SSA VEC , augmented with 10 parent
representatives and 2 teacher representatives (one for the regular teachers and one for the
voluntary teachers).
•Meets monthly after the LSS meeting, discuss issues raised by LSS and acts on them (ex –
Filing a complaint against the non-cooperative teaching staff at the DEO)
•Decides budget for local education related expenses
•Provides for monetary benefits to parents of students with good attendance (ex- For
Attendance > 70% , an extra subsidized LPG cylinder per year per family )
Feedback team
•Collect audit based feedback from all organs of the model, parents and make intuitive
reports based on them to be given to the LSS
•Handle internal complaints and keep the system happy 
Details of the model – A model for 15 schools

9. Sample Timeline of Events Impact
End of day
Ground staff takes
attendance of students as
well as teachers
End of week
Ground staff submits attendance
report to analysis team.
Obtains list of frequent absentees
and visits them.
Student mentors visit schools
Twice in a semester
Standardised tests (ASSET like)
conducted, scores appended to
report
Pre-enrolment stage:
• Recruit voluntary teachers and other staff
required.
• Volu tary teachers i teract with stude ts’ pare ts
to emphasize the importance of education
End of month
•Audits of infrastructure
and midday meal
submitted to analysis
team
•Lok Shiksha Sabha meets
body of parents, school
teachers committee and all
employees. Open meeting.
•Committee meets after the
Sabha. Acts on the issues
raised.
•Student Mentors report to
mentor managers
Criteria to measure impact :
• Attendance of teachers and students.
• Performance in standardised tests
• Infrastructure and facilities in schools
Scalability and Sustainability :
• Can be implemented as pilot project in a
few districts and then expanded, with
modifications depending on its
shortcomings.
• 60 people (excluding voluntary teachers)
employed for every 15 schools.
Expected Outcome :
•About 4000 students to be ensured quality
primary education for an annual investment
of about 1.2 crores ( Rs 3000 per student per
year).
• Increased awareness and community
involvement .

10. Economics and Feasibility
Estimated Expenses(for 15 schools per annum, all figures in INR)
Staff Number Salary per month
(in INR)
Total per month(in
INR)
Ground Personnel 30 8000 2,40,000
Voluntary Teachers 15 15000 2,25,000
Data Analysis Team 5 12000 60,000
Student Mentor
Managers
15 12000 1,80,000
Teaching Staff
Managers
5 10000 50,000
Slots(Part timers) 100 per month 150 per slot 15,000
Feedback Team 5 12000 60,000
Total per month : 8,30,000
Total salary expense per annum = 99,60,000
Miscellaneous expenses = 20,00,000
(Office cost, transport, subsidy, incentives etc)
Total expenditure per annum = 1.2 crores(approx)
Sources of funding : Government grants & Donations from corporate sector

11. Risks, Challenges and Plausible solutions
Risk Plausible solutions
Insincere ground personnel • Proper screening to ensure motivated
people are recruited
• Principal takes the ground staffs attendance
• In extreme cases, take ground staff's
biometric attendance
Lesser number of voluntary teachers/ student
mentors in some places
More digital learning like video lectures,
online notes etc
Large money involvement leading to corruption
at office level
• Proper economic audit by an external
agency
• A website accessible by the public which
clearly shows details of all transactions
Low participation in the LSS and ASSA VEC
meetings
Complementary meal during the meeting

12. References
[1] http://www.asercentre.org/education/data/india/statistics/level/p/66.html
[2] http://goo.gl/jkhv7u
[3] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3160
[4] http://www.assetonline.in/asset_online/index.php
[5] http://www.indiawaterportal.org/source/paheli-peoples-audit-health-education-
and-livelihoods
[6] http://ssa.nic.in/main_page
[7] http://www.teachforindia.org
***End of Presentation***
Resources Used
http://mhrd.gov.in/documents/term/137
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/TLLWxKjaJG790cs99bIv2L/Challenges-to-primary-
education.html
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/nSU6PpzDw9Qi1Pbp11nviI/Using-evidence-for-better-
policy-case-of-primary-education.html
http://www.dseap.gov.in/Educational%20Statistics.pdf
http://indiancag.org/manthan/research-documents/primary-education.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_China#Primary_education