Rams work under Wipro Fellowship

Wipro Fellowship
Under fellowship, currently I am involved with documentation of two projects. The first one is about the Documentation of the DQEP work with Mid level functionaries (CRP and BRPs) and
the second one is related to Documenting the Whole School Change Process at Vidya Bhawan school, Udaipur.

I have briefly described each of these works.
1. Documentation of the DQEP work with Mid level functionaries (Block Resource Persons and Cluster Resource Persons)

Background
In an effort to decentralize the management of primary education, and to bridge the gap between Districts level to school level structures. Block and Cluster structures were thought as the middle level functional structures and became operational during DPEP and SSA. These structures consists of Block Resource Persons (BRP)/ Cluster Resource Persons (CRP) and Block and Cluster resource centers The structures were visualized as providing teacher support in the form of Teacher training programmes and providing school based support for effective monitoring of the government school programmes. However, for various reasons these structures have not been able to perform the academic responsibilities and they have been entrusted with various administrative responsibilities.
There was a need to focus on decentralization and integrate the Block and Cluster level functionaries (BRP/CRPs) to work together for enhancing the professional support to teaches and schools. A small effort was initiated as a part of District Quality Education project -DQEP- (also know as ‘Vidyankura’) at Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka. The project was housed at National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. (To know more about DQEP Project visit http://nias.res.in/site/vidya.htm)

The CRP certificate programme and The Integrated Block and Cluster Development (IBCD) programme deals with, middle level functionaries. The key objective is to instutionalize a process of integrated capacity building along mid-level educational functionaries (BRPs and CRPs) to impact classroom teaching-learning processes.
These programme were initiated from December 2003 and April 2006 with the support of SSA, Karnataka and Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai. Documenting the IBCD Work

Current work

The current work is to critically reflect the work done with mid level functionaries with respect to the process of design, the design and the process of the interventions. It is expected that, this critical documentation will contribute towards understanding the nature and scope for working together in a process of systemic education reform

I am currently revising and editing my first draft of the report.

2. Documentation of Whole School Change (WSC) process. A Case study of Vidyabhawan Senior Secondary school, Udaipur

Rationale for documenting the WSC.
Schools are social institutions with a distinct identity and culture located in a specific context. Schools provide an institutional /democratic space where the future citizens are nurtured. When school is viewed as a learning and democratic organization, it necessitates that the school students, teachers, Principal etc to participate in the decision making process and examine the exisiting, curriculum, modify the structure/system/process of schooling and to change /align once beliefs to realize /redefine the vision of the school. How does a school change? How each participant views the school change? What are the essential elements for effective school change? How does school needs to define its role in the 21st century? Are some of the questions that make us to rationalize the need for school change.

In Indian scenario the efforts to document the school change and process of interventions are limited. The information collected on school change is very sporadic unlike in the west where there is sea of literature on whole school change.

Which makes a strong case for a systemically document the process of school change, reflect on the key learning’s, modify the ways/means and question the existing assumptions on whole school change process. The documentation of these efforts can be viewed as an effort to draw implications/generalizations on schools operating in the larger contexts and certain policy implication can be inferred from working with specific contexts.

About Vidyabhawan society
Vidyabhawan Society was founded by Dr. Mohan Sinha Mehta with the opening of Vidyabhawan School in 1931. (For details visit www.vidyabhawan.org)

Vidya Bhawan Society - School transformation project
In 2004, Wipro and VBS came together to work in the arena of quality education after a long period of discussions and interactions for quality education under the project of WSTP- Whole School Transformation Project.
For details visit http://www.wiproeducation.com/?q=node/65

Current work
Collaborating with VBS to evolve a proposal for case study of VBS senior secondary school.

The intention of this case study is to document the WSC Process at VBS senior secondary school. The documentation is intended to capture the experiences of teachers, students and HM of the school with respect to WSC. The intent of this study is to consolidate these experiences and attempt to provide a holistic view of the WSC. It is assumed that such view would facilitate and enhance the current process of critical reflection, debate and discussions related to WSC within the school.

The data for this study will be collected through Questionnaires, interviews and analysis of existing documents. A case study methodology would be employed to analyze and interpret the data