When the results of the National Achievement Survey (NAS) were released earlier in 2021, 31-year-old IAS officer Jitendra Dudi, executive director of the Sangli district, was taken aback. Although Maharashtra students performed better than the national average, one in every three Class III students was unable to answer basic questions about language and mathematics.
Learning Improvement Program (LIP)
At the time, Jitendra Dudi decided to launch the ‘Learning Improvement Program (LIP)’ in Sangli to improve learning outcomes among Zila Parishad school students in his
district.
Dudi collaborated with the Pratham Foundation in December 2021 to conduct a very basic assessment of each student. The LIP has now been completed for six months, having reached over 1 lakh children, over 5,500 teachers, and 90 cadres at the block and district levels. Its success is a case study in innovative teaching and learning.
“Sangli is the first district where all students from Class I to VIII were tested. We prepare a report card for each student and suggest interventions,” said Machhindra Padwal, coordinator of the Pratham Foundation.
“Usually when we give teachers ready-to-use content, their take-up is low. We asked them to develop their own content. We decided to use local stories… involved mothers who became our volunteers,” said Dudi.
Findings of evaluation
A midline evaluation was conducted in July 2022, six months after the project began. The findings are as follows: The percentage of children in grades 3-5 who are readers (can read a grade 2-level text) has risen to 79 percent, an increase of nine percentage points. There was a 17% percentage point increase in the number of third graders who were able to solve a 2×2 addition problem. For grades 4 and 5, there was an improvement of at least 10 percentage points in the number of children who were able to
tackle the writing section of the paper-and-pencil test.
“The improvement has been tremendous. Our goal is to score above 85% or 90% in all aspects for all of our students for our next survey in February-March 2023,” said Dudi.
