Our Experience

Though not comprehensive, the following sub-sections capture major components of our experience base and capabilities. (Some of these have involved individual assignments.)

Clients

IgnusERG’s clients include (a detailed list can be provided if required):

  1. Governments and government programmes: Government of India, over 20 state governments in India, the governments of Afghanistan and Bangladesh; programmes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Mahila Samakhya, DPEP, Bihar Education Programme, UP-Basic Education Programme, Lok Jumbos
  2. INGOs and NGOs: CARE, CRS, NEG-FIRE, Room to Read, CEE, Sarvodaya Ashram, Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal,
  3. International bodies: UNICEF, UNESCO, DFID, EU, USAID, World Bank

Some of our major activities are listed below.

Orientation of policy- and decision-makers

  • As Educational Quality Advisor – SSA, Ministry of Human Resources and Development, Government of India, Subir Shukla contributed to the development of the SSA Framework for implementing the Quality Improvement aspects of the Right to Education.
  • Over two years (2009-11), also oriented Education Secretaries, State Project Directors, SCERT and Education Department Directors of all states in India, as well as MHRD officials, on ‘Education of Equitable Quality’.
  • Earlier (1995-1998), Subir was Chief Consultant (Quality Improvement) to District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), Government of India.

Curriculum and material development from ECE to Elementary Education

  • Facilitated development of curriculum, textbooks, workbooks and supporting material for primary and elementary schools (including linkages with secondary) in state education systems of the following states. This included selecting and orienting curriculum developers and textbook writers, facilitating and mentoring the actual writing process, providing inputs the production processes, piloting and field testing, ‘roll out’ in the state system, orientation of officials and teachers in:
    1. Assam
    2. Gujarat
    3. Haryana
    4. Kerala
    5. Nagaland
    6. Tamil Nadu
    7. Uttar Pradesh
    8. Uttarakhand

Teacher Professional Development

  • Most of the programmes mentioned included development of teacher training as well as the conduct of Training of Trainers, and other capacity building measures, including the development of Cluster Resource Centres and Block Resource Centres.
  • Development and conduct of large-scale teacher training for government education systems in:
    1. Andaman & Nicobar Islands
    2. Andhra Pradesh
    3. Assam
    4. Bihar
    5. Gujarat
    6. Haryana
    7. Himachal Pradesh
    8. Jharkhand
    9. Karnataka
    10. Kerala
    11. Madhya Pradesh
    12. Nagaland
    13. Orissa
    14. Puduchherry
    15. Rajasthan
    16. Tamil Nadu
    17. Uttar Pradesh
    18. West Bengal
  • Development of Performance Standards and their implementation through ADEPTS (a GoI-Unicef initiative: Advancement of Educational Performance through Teacher Support): facilitation of the national process involving all states; later, supporting state specific implementation in West Bengal, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Pondicherry and Orissa.

Pedagogy addressing specific needs

Apart from addressing the needs of pre-school children and tribal children, IgnusERG has worked on the following –

  1. Girls’ education: (residential bridge courses incorporating accelerated learning – ‘Udaan’ – for CARE-India, Sarvodaya Ashram, and Mahila Samakhya run KGBVs)
  2. Literacy for livelihood: the post-war situation in Afghanistan and the post-tsunami recovery efforts in coastal Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh required the literacy programmes related to livelihoods, which IgnusERG designed and facilitated their development and implementation.
  3. Women’s education: for Mahila Samakhya, post-tsunami programmes for women run by CARE-India, as well as for two programmes in Afghanistan: Literacy for Life and the Literacy and Community Empowerment Programme.
  4. Inclusive education: the development of a Teacher Training programme in 4 states on behalf of MHRD and Unesco (called ‘School Without Walls’); also enabling the transition of two schools for children with mental disabilities into inclusive schools (with non-disabled children) for Rajasthan Mahila Kalyan Mandal, Ajmer)

Experience in Secondary Education

Projects on supporting professional development of secondary teachers

    1. Udbhav – In partnership with Kusuma Trust UK, 2012 onwards, and Kusuma Foundation, India. Through this project being implemented in Hardoi (UP) and Sambalpur (Odisha), IgnusERG has:
      • evolved a pedagogical model appropriate for adolescents who typically attend government schools
      • developed a Good Teaching Guide for Secondary Teachers
      • teacher support material in Science, English and Mathematics
      • student support material in Science, English and Mathematics
      • performance standards for teachers and students
      • inservice training of teachers
      • developed a District Resource Group to enable on-site support and mentoring
    2. Training of secondary school teachers in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 2005, with support from Catholic Relief Services.

Exposure to tribal and multi-lingual contexts

  • Developed Mother-tongue based ECCE curriculum in four tribal languages of Odisha, including materials for use by children and teachers.
  • Worked with multi-lingual situation in curriculum and textbook development in Nagaland, Assam, Orissa (in DPEP).
  • Also in development and implementation of early education programmes in Chittagong Hills Tract region in Bangladesh (which has a number of tribal groups who don’t speak Bengali), and in
  • Afghanistan (which has ethnic minorities with languages different from the two ‘main’ languages of the country, Dari and Pashto).
  • As Chief Consultant (Quality Improvement) to DPEP, evolved GoI’s approach to home-school language transition.
  • Work with Eklavya from 1986-1992, mentioned earlier, took place in a tribal area of India. It involved research and implementation work on mutli-lingual situation in educational contexts, and was the first such effort in India and has subsequently formed basis for MLE approaches and work elsewhere.

Other areas

Other areas of our experience include:

  • Research and programme evaluation
  • Capacity building of programme teams
  • Institutional development
  • Project design