About 80% of any urban body's education focus lies in enabling infrastructural support & access to children; <20% on quality learning outcomes. Lack of holistic educational vision, insufficient structural governance, inactive teachers’ capacity building cadre and lack of contextual resources have led to decline in learning as well as drop in enrollment and school closure.
School enrolment hit a 7-year low in UDISE+ 2024-25 in India. Data points total enrolment across classes 1-12 has fallen to 232.89 million – a drop of 2.08 million from 234.97 million in 2023-24, marking the lowest level since 2017-18.
According to the data collected by MSCERT in 2018, Nagpur and Pimpri Chichwad Municipal Corporation featured in the bottom 20 performing blocks across the state, with most of grade 1 students lacking emergent literacy skills, grade 3 can only read and understand grade 1 text and most students in grade 5 can only read, comprehend and write grade 3 text.
Akanksha Foundation started in 1991 with a vision to empower every child with the skills, knowledge and values they need to lead empowered lives. It established public–private partnership schools in 2007 and after 15 years, it scaled best-in-class practices from 26 such schools to over 200 public schools across two cities. The project aims at improving foundational literacy, numeracy, early childhood outcomes and overall strengthening of schools with a vision for holistic learning and well-being for all students.
In 2022, Project Setu – City as a Unit of Change was launched in the Pimpri Chinchwad and Nagpur Municipal Corporations (PCMC and NMC) to expand Akanksha schools’ impact to all schools in the city.
We have been able to influence system leaders’ vision and policies to drive child-centric, holistic education; develop mentors and master trainers to strengthen the capacity of educators and headmasters; strengthen School Management Committees; develop programs and policies for student safety; and co-create student-facing resources while ensuring the implementation of structured arts, sports, and well-being programs for all students.
After 3 years of intervention, based on study done by IDInsight, we see positive shifts in the practices. Learning outcomes have improved on an average of 17% or more in all core subjects, including literacy and numeracy evaluated through third party assessments done by Quality Council Of India.
In PCMC, student enrolment has increased by 13%. School Management Committees have been strengthened with democratic election process and additional resources have been allocated to schools by the municipal corporation. Overall education budget allocation has increased by 35% since 2022–23.
Consistent positive shifts in learning outcomes have attracted multiple neighbouring municipal corporations to explore this model and practices. Over the next five years, we plan to scale to 1000 schools, 10,000 educators, and over 300,000 students in urban geographies of Maharashtra state. We will continue to deepen our work in the current geographies with a well-planned, collaborative roadmap for achieving the student vision.
With strong collaboration with 10+ organisations as implementation and/or thought partners, we have been sharing our model and learnings with a wider network in the education field.
Our collaboration with the State Education Department will help us influence key implementation strategies aligned with national policies for holistic learning, and student safety and well-being.
Interested teams can learn about the project by visiting the cities, interacting with government stakeholders, engaging in discussions with us, and referring to available reports and resources. For adoption or collaboration, please contact Jayshree Oberoi, who leads the project, at jayshree.oberoi@akanksha.org
