SHIKHA < SANSKAR < SWAYAM

In India, illiteracy is pervasive. Thirty-seven percent of the world’s illiterate population (287 million people) live in India (UNESCO, 2017). In Hindi speaking states, 85-95% children cannot read at grade level and even in states like Maharashtra which perform well economically, 92% children in Grade 1 cannot read at grade level. As large as 50% of children who are part of the public education system in India do not graduate from grade 10. In urban slums, daily wage laborers living on meagre monthly income take burdensome loans for sending their children to private schools pointing that the people of India believe government schools do not offer quality education. This loss of faith reflects in the enrollment in public schools that fell by more than 13 million in 2015-16 as compared to 2010-11 (Source: U-DISE 2016-17).

It is a serious concern for a country like India where over 90 million students would be ready to join the workforce in 2030 without proper skills or education. Despite spending USD 94 billion during 2002-2012 on primary education, India has been unable to solve the problem of decline in learning (2012, Mukherjee and Sikdar). Millions of children in Grade 2 can’t perform two-digit subtraction.

Children in India are deprived of quality education in schools, knowledge, attitude and mindset in parents about the importance of education and adequate financial resources which leads to high dropouts in secondary education which causes an increase in unskilled labour force, child labour and early marriage.

Sparsha Charitable Trust believes that access to a safe and a supportive environment as well as opportunities for education leads to their overall development, unfolding the child’s potential. Our model works with children from the age of 3 years upto 18 years and prepares them for life so that they can break their cycle of poverty through the power of excellent education.

Through our baseline studies in various slum pockets, Sparsha has realized that access to quality education is the main reason for significant number of children dropping out of school in slums of Suburban Mumbai. Presently in the operational area (5 areas in 3 Wards of Suburban Mumbai) the quality of infrastructure, services provided in the school, attitude of the management against the slum children is an area of grave concern. Hence, for a holistic development of the child, along with access to education, the child requires an ongoing academic support and strong parent guidance and involvement.

Our three flagship programmes are aimed to provide support to children from the most vulnerable communities from their formative years till they enter into the higher secondary to prepare them for the workforce and become leaders in their own communities

Shiksha

We use the play way method to develop the love for education in the children in the age group of 3 years to 6 years and help them become ready for school.

Sanskar

We re-enroll the children in the age group of 6 years to 14 years who dropout of school and help them build the learning gap by providing academic support for English and Mathematics

Swayam

We provide academic support and guidance to children age group of 15 to 18 years who dropout of high school to complete a minimum education of 12th Grade. We also aim at developing skills and mindsets in these children to help them make the right choices in life.

Our activities are focused towards the children, parents and the communities but our overall impact is assessed on number of children enrolled in schools and their academic performance. We are currently in the process of re-assessing our M&E systems and are on the path to become a data-driven organisation. We are also developing systems to track the non-academic impact on the children as well.