For the last three decades, we have been working in the area of education. We provide technical support in the form of training and designing curricular content ranging from ECE to secondary education. Here we share some resources that we developed to help educators or parents/caregivers.
CAREER GUIDANCE PROGRAM
Vikramshila, in collaboration with UNICEF, has developed a set of 500 career cards and a career portal aimed at empowering youth to make informed career choices. These resources have been endorsed and recognised by the NCERT, CBSE, and the Ministry of Education. In our commitment to inclusivity, we’re delighted to inform you that the career cards are not only inclusive with respect to gender and disability but also linguistically. They have been translated into Kannada, Gujarati, and Bengali, in addition to their original versions in English and Hindi. These also 100 National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) approved vocational career choices, and online and distance courses to make higher education more accessible.
Portal: https://careerguidance.unilearn.org.in/
TEXTBOOK AND WORKBOOK DEVELOPMENT IN BIHAR
English and Numeracy textbooks and workbooks for grade 1 & 2 were developed for the state in collaboration with SCERT.
FOUNDATIONAL NUMERACY RESOURCES FOR DIFFERENT STATES
TEACHER GUIDE AND STUDENT ACTIVITY BOOKS TO SUPPORT SCHOOL READINESS
The National Education Policy, along with its corresponding NIPUN Bharat guidelines, emphasizes the significance of play-based preschool programs for cognitive readiness, enabling a smooth transition to primary schools. However, due to the vast and complex systemic constraints, not all children start primary school on an equal footing. To facilitate a seamless entry into primary school, state governments have adopted NCERT’s Vidya Pravesh package, which includes a three-month school readiness program focusing on cognitive readiness for language and numeracy skills. Vikramshila has provided support to the states of Maharashtra and Rajasthan SCERT in implementing this program.
RESOURCES DEVELOPED FOR RAJASTHAN
Activity compendium and a handbook for toy-based pedagogy was developed with RSCERT.
A COLLECTION OF 100 POEMS IN BENGALI
A book of 100 poems, ‘Eksho Chorar Phooljhuri’ was published by Patra Bharati in association with Vikramshila Education Resource Society and Kobita Club.
PAST PUBLICATIONS
Research based intervention that is planned and purposeful is the crux of any good educational programme. Vikramshila has strived to document much of its practices both for learning and advocacy purposes. While as a resource organization, almost all our work is practical research, there have been some areas where conscious efforts were made to relook at the volume of work in order to identify some emerging patterns that would be useful for educational practitioners, teachers and policy level decision makers.
A HUNDRED NEW BEGINNINGS
This document summarizes Vikramshila’s program for 100 high school graduate girls from Bengali medium government-aided schools in Kolkata. It was a 21-day camp focused on life skills and career enhancement, including Communicative English, digital literacy, career readiness, soft skills, and workplace skills. The girls showed significant growth, becoming confident and articulate. They showcased their learning at the end of the camp. This report reflects on the success of the program, accompanied by a short video of the camp process.
THE WONDER OF BOOKS
The Wonder of Books was a theorization of Vikramshila’s efforts in setting up classroom libraries in our learning centres, to help children from print deprived communities access high quality children’s literature. The pilot over two years helped children create a great bonding with books, and also attempted to take libraries beyond its usual ambit, to act as active language development spaces not just for children who could read but also for emergent readers. A parallel early grade reading program was launched alongside to reading an active reading program for early readers. Our efforts, learnings, experiences are shared in this document.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS – AN ANALYSIS OF VIKRAMSHILA’S EXPERIENCES IN REMEDIAL EDUCATION
Vikramshila’s work in classrooms has often been in the area of offering remediation for students that are aimed at strengthening their educational foundations and help them surmount obstacles in learning. This publication discusses the idea of remedial tutoring strategies that were used by Vikramshila across its various projects, to help children overcome their learning difficulties based in the principle that “effective intervention begins with a deep analysis of learning’. The study also explores the idea of tuitions that is large and burgeoning in our society and compares it to the idea of remediation.
FOOTPRINTS IN TIME -A LONGITUDINAL STUDY
This publication tracks Vikramshila’s Naba Disha programme over the last 14 years through a narrative based in the first person account through the lens of 16 youth alumni. The study is an evidential representation of the ideologies Vikramshila’s educational practices, which focuses both on academic achievements and developing of individuals into conscious and socially sensitive individuals. The narration gives a ‘longitudinal perspective on the process of unfolding of these children into proud and confident youth’.
CONTOURS OF “THE MADRASA MARKET” IN WEST BENGAL- THE IDEA OF QUALITY AND IMPACT OF THE RTE ACT 2009
Vikramshila has been working with Khariji (private unaided) Madrasas in West Bengal for the last 7 years. In this duration, several milestones affecting the context of Madrasas have been crossed, namely, the Sachar Committee Report (2005), the National Curriculum Framework 2005, the RTE Act 2009, the Supreme Court Judgement on Private Unaided Minority Institutions (2012) and the change of government in West Bengal in 2011. Based on qualitative research conducted in 14 Madrasas in Hooghly district, over the last two years, a study was undertaken which attempts to analyze the idea of quality in terms of child centeredness, institutional management, infrastructure and functioning. The paper also delves into the issues of demography; access and the socio-economic distribution of children in each type of madrasa.
‘LET A THOUSAND FLOWERS BLOOM’ – BY PROF POONAM BATRA, UNIVERSITY OF DELHI AND LATE, MS. SUSHMITA BANERJEE, SAMBHAV SHIKSHA EVAM JANONNAN SAMITI, (JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN)
was a study undertaken to document processes of the educational programme of Naba Disha. It was an evaluative study of the programme after 10 years of its operation to study the strategies adopted by Naba Disha to reach out to the children of marginalized and vulnerable communities of Kolkata slums and squatter colonies. The study has gained deep insights into the unique pedagogy and classroom processes developed by Vikramshila to meet the challenge of making education meaningful and relevant to children.
