Initiatives
The basis of AVEHI ABACUS PROJECT’s philosophy is that education is much more than a teacher delivering a ready-made curriculum in a classroom and students imbibing it unquestioningly. We believe that it is an all-encompassing process that continues throughout an individual’s life and is guided by myriad experiences. Education needs to be meaningful and relevant to students and teachers alike, only then will it lead to personal growth, empowerment and social justice.
Our educational system is a complex entity comprising many interest groups, who sometimes pull in different directions. It is thus important to interact with all aspects of the system and its key players – children and their parents, teachers and teacher educators, administrators and policy makers, as well as the civil society. AVEHI ABACUS PROJECT is therefore involved in a number of other initiatives to engage with important stakeholders. These include:
Mainstreaming
National and State level organizations have recognized the significant work done by us and have invited AVEHI ABACUS PROJECT inputs in resource building and strategy. Elements of Sangati and Manthan curricula have been used during syllabus and textbook revision exercises and have been recommended as resource material at the National and State level.
Our Project Director has played a crucial part during the development of syllabus and teaching learning material created by NCERT, New Delhi. She has served as a member of the textbook committee on Environment, Health and Physical Hygiene, (2005-09) and Sangati materials have been integrated in some textbooks; our material was also used as ‘reference material’ in National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education - National Council for Teacher Education 2009. (NCF-NCTE) She was also the Chairperson of the EVS school syllabus committee formed by the Maharashtra State Centre for Education Research and Training (MSCERT) (2010-12) and a member of the core-committee for revising the DTEd course (2013-14). She was nominated by the Ministry of Human Resources Development to the Executive Committee of the National Mission of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (2005-13).
Alongside, she teaches a course in Pedagogy of Social Sciences for the Masters in Elementary Education programme at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai and has played a key role in developing a teacher education syllabus for the Bachelor of Education programme for TISS (2016-17) and the National Council for Teacher Education (2017-18).
Partnership with UNICEF Mumbai:
UNICEF, Maharashtra approached and entered into a contract with Avehi Abacus Project as a resource organization, to review, analyse and map life skill and equity issues in Maharashtra State Board textbooks for Grades I to X. This collaboration was undertaken to help the Department of Education, Government of Maharashtra analyse school textbooks with a view to making them more contemporary. The report is finalized and submitted to UNICEF. It was presented to Additional Chief Secretary, School Education, Government of Maharashtra, Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training and Balbharti (the textbook making body) officials and has been much appreciated. The report was also translated in Marathi.
Children’s Publishing, Reviewing Syllabi and Textbooks
Over the last two decades of material development we have generated a wide range of unique and high quality reading resource for children and young adults. Noted children’s publishers Eklavya and Tulika have published some of the stories developed over the years by Avehi Abacus Project in multiple languages. The titles have been greatly appreciated by young readers and have run into several re-prints.
We have also undertaken systematic reviews and analysis of syllabi and textbooks and shared them with the concerned State level bodies and with educationists and researchers.
Advocacy
AVEHI ABACUS PROJECT also networks with other organizations working for education, child rights, and social justice. The Open House programmes organized by us have provided a platform for like-minded groups and individuals to come together, share ideas and collectively mobilize communities to influence State policies.
The organization is an active founding member of forums at the local, State and National level working towards securing the Constitutional mandate of equal quality right to education for all children between the age group of 0 to 18 years. The ground level work done by us in documenting cases of violation of children’s rights, commenting on policy issues, generating primary field-data for debate and discussion has added strength to various campaigns. The pivotal role played by us has been valued by academics and activists alike.
Participation of Simantini Dhuru as an Expert in the Study Group:
Simantini Dhuru was invited by the Centre for Excellence in Teacher Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai to develop a teaching-learning module for ‘Justice and Constitutional Values’ for teachers and students of Delhi Government’s ‘Schools for Excellence’. She along with Dr. Manish Jain, (Faculty, Dr. Ambedkar University, New Delhi) led the process from April to August 2022 to create a syllabus, teaching sessions and assessment module. This has been implemented by teachers for students studying in standard IXth and Xth, in Delhi government’s ‘Schools of Excellence’. The module is one of the key themes of the component of ‘World of Work’ which aims at exposing students to possible professional avenue after they complete their school learning and the ‘Justice an Constitutional Values’ module is a foundational core for the professions of lawyering, public policy, advocacy, etc. Simantini and Dr. Jain together developed 12 sessions for classroom use as well as the assessment components. They also conducted total of six workshops to orient teachers to the module. It has been reported by TISS that the response to the module has been tremendously positive both from teaches as well as from the students.