CHAMPS (Chudar Action for Measurable Progress in Schools)

Education is every child’s right and essential for the exercise of all other human rights. It promotes individual freedom and empowerment and yields significant development benefits. In a state like Tamilnadu, more than 98% children in the age group 6 – 14 are enrolled and attending school, as per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a large-scale nationwide survey. However, the same survey also points to the abysmal state in quality of education, especially for economically underprivileged children. We believe that this situation is mainly due to the prevalence of rote memorisation unique to Tamilnadu. When children learn by memorization as opposed to understanding, they develop a fear for the subject. Based on our extensive interactions and surveys, the two subjects that children are most afraid of are Mathematics and English. Underprivileged children in government schools are particularly affected as they do not get support at home either, as they are often first-generation learners.

Children assimilate concepts and skills as opposed to rote learning. When children learn concepts and skills as opposed to memorisation, they become confident learners. The Chudar School Program aims to shift the focus from memorizing facts to focusing on “skills” and “concepts”. This change was achieved by training teachers and creating a methodology that is lively and interesting to students.

The key components of the program include

• 'Train the Trainers' has been our core mission. We train the government school teachers, equip them with the needed materials and monitor them on their effective use of teaching methodologies. Change in teachers’ mindset to focus, teach and improve on students’ skill, will ensure recurring benefit every year.

• Content & Methodology forms the core part of our solution, developed with the goal of engaging children and making learning meaningful. Well researched and ease of use materials for the teachers are provided along with graded worksheets to track and improve specific skills as well as practice worksheets that can be used for revision purposes.

• Concept-based learning with fun activities using well-researched activity kits and other learning materials

• Quarterly assessment to track children’s progress to measure the improvement in learning.

Skills are carefully chosen for the term as per the syllabus and children are assessed in the selected skills. Assessments are conducted twice (start and end of the term). Insights from the assessment are shared with the teachers in order to help them improve children’s skills.

• Skill improvement – each child, is declared with a min. of 2 to 4 skills

• Learning improvement of about 40% in classes where the teachers follow the principles outlined above