Context
This project is one of the 2023 WISE Awards finalists.
Despite India’s impressive economic growth, social inequality keeps more than 200 million people in poverty. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take seven generations for India’s poor to reach a mean income. Access to education, particularly for girls, is critical to ending this trend. Evidence shows poverty could be cut in half if all children completed secondary school. Yet, while the Indian government has invested heavily in primary education, attention at the secondary level lags. The transition from primary to secondary is low, with only 50% completing secondary school. Classroom sizes are large. Quality is inconsistent.
Access to digital learning is limited. Many school management challenges exist. And teachers don’t always have the support they need to ensure good learning outcomes for all. As a result, millions of children are left behind. So the cycle of poverty continues. To address these issues, Transform Schools engages a broad community of teachers, families and local actors in designing and piloting educational solutions for secondary students that governments adopt at scale. Our whole school approach includes running an innovation lab to develop and test learning enhancement programmes while partnering with the state to scale programmes.
Solution and Approach
Transform Schools proven Transform Learning (TL) programme enables students in Grades 6-10 in Government middle and secondary schools to reach the right learning level in their states’ regional language, English, Math and Science. This offering is a competency based learning enhancement programme which supports students to build foundational and pre-requisite competencies enabling them to excel at their current grade level. TL is the only intervention that addresses secondary school learning outcomes by working through State-level partnerships using high-quality, accredited, globally accepted proven methodologies like mastery learning, peer and group learning, staggered academic support and interactive teaching methods.
Impact and Future Development
An RCT conducted by J-PAL (2020) drew analysis from our programme and found that TL is the only such programme at the secondary level that adds up to 1.5 years of additional learning in just 50 hours of instruction per subject. This translates to 40-200% additional learning gains over comparator business as usual schools.
By 2030, we aim to reach 20M students in India which is 25% of all students in middle and secondary government schools by:
- Entering new States by determining the educational needs and government commitments
- Evolving student-centred programming for sustained engagement through our new blended learning platform – Accelerated Learning via Tech which will deepen the reach and gains of TL
- Scaling to Aided and vulnerable schools located in tribal areas – These schools are becoming a policy focus in the country and also follow the state curriculum
- Deepening our evidence and research practice to advocate for secondary education improvements and scaling the impact of our offerings