Agrasar Bachpan

Gurugram has urban villages (“slum” colonies) in the heart of Gurugram, popularly known as the ‘Millennium City’. The city has witnessed a stupendous grown over the last one and a half decade. With increase in the population of high income families, top national and international schools have opened their branches in the city. Children of these families are getting high quality education in these schools that is comparable to anywhere else in the world. On the other side, there are thousands of children in Gurugram in the age group of 4 to 14 who are not even enrolled in schools. These are the children of migrant workers – maids, driver, rickshaw-pullers, vegetable sellers, construction workers etc. Even if some of them do get enrolled in government schools, they have to face the apathy of the teachers and locals on a regular basis. Those who can afford higher fee, get their children admitted to low cost private schools. However, even in these schools the quality of education is highly questionable.

600 out-of-school children from disadvantaged communities have been identified and enrolled in our learning centres every year. Agrasar has developed a robust curriculum for the learning centres. Children are taught through a well structured education program with following objectives - 1. They reach age-appropriate learning levels 2. They develop life skills and social skills needed to lead meaningful lives. 3. Their parents become more confident in taking up the responsibility of their education. Along with academics the students have been groomed on basic etiquettes and hygiene. Our curriculum activities, worksheets and plans are designed and followed based on our ‘child-centric’ approach and play-way method of teaching. As developing the curriculum is an ongoing process, we will continue to improvise on it and revise accordingly in the coming years. For this, we organize teachers' training programs to provide support to our teachers. During the academic year (2017-18) we had various co-curricular activities for holistic development of our students - art and craft, storytelling, dance sessions, Annual Day Celebration, meditation sessions, health & nutrition session and immunisation camps.

A learning journey is kept to track the progress of each student. It starts with baseline assessment during the first month of a child’s enrollment. Assessment is done on learning indicators prescribed by the appropriate education board as well as social skills. This is followed by assessments every 3 months. Final assessment in a particular annual cycle is done in the month of December so as to ascertain students who are to be mainstreamed that year.

Keeping parents involved in the process of education is one of the main pillars of Agrasar Bachpan. Parents being the influencer in quality as well as consistency of education are engaged at various stages through parent-teacher meeting, inviting them in the classrooms, participation in festivals and other events held at the centre.

100 more children will get enrolled in the learning centre in first six months of the program. (Around 80 children will continue from previous year - those who have still not reached age appropriate learning levels and not ready for mainstreaming yet)

50 children are expected to reach the age-appropriate literacy levels within one year, depending on their baseline learning levels.

All 100 children will get educated in personal hygiene and life skills.

There shall be regular Parent-Teacher meeting. Parents, especially mothers, will undergo developmental classes so that they can actively participate in learning and holistic development of their wards.

Enrollment of at least 30 of the children in mainstream education system. (Rest shall be mainstreamed in next year - depending on the individual context) This will further boost children’s morale and get them sustainably linked to the education system.

The attendance of the children in formal schools will be tracked. The learning centre will also keep a track of the progress of child by meeting with school teachers.