EXCELLENCE AT SCHOOL

THE School Excellence Program (Teacher’s Training) for a hundred Municipal schools in Thane was launched by PP Rtn. Nirav Shah, Rtn. Mudit Jain, Rtn. Hiren Kara and Rtn. Anar Shah on September 1st, 2017. The programme was undertaken by the Rotary Club of Bombay and the Rotary Club of Colombo with the help of Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF), the cooperating organisation. While the project was initially estimated to take a year, it has now come to completion.

The total project cost was Rs 1.83 crore or US$ 285,000. Amit Chandra (non-Rotarian) donated US$ 200,000 while US$ 85,000 was funded by The Rotary Foundation (Evanston, USA). The programme was executed via global grant which is sustainable and measurable as per TRF norms.

THE OBJECTIVE FOR THIS GLOBAL GRANT WAS TO IMPROVE THE SCHOLASTIC OUTCOME OF OVER 24,000 UNDERPRIVILEGED STUDENTS STUDYING IN THANE’S MUNICIPAL SCHOOLS. THIS WAS DONE BY:
1. Building leadership and managerial capabilities of school principals and education officers.
2. Enhancing subject knowledge and teaching abilities of teachers.
3. Engaging local community members in the school development process.

Through this project, 100 school principals, 200 school teachers and 10 education officers benefited. Improving teachers’ abilities improved students’ academic performances. This intervention is expected to have a long-term effect since teachers in the public education system stay in the system for long periods of time and can teach different sets of children every year more effectively.

RCB had short-listed some organisations that work with teachers to improve the public education system and met different types of people across vital verticals such as operations and strategy teams. Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) was chosen as the cooperating organisation.

Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) is a change management organisation founded in 2008 that supports Public Education System leaders to improve student’s learning outcome in public schools by developing leadership, improving processes and deploying technology.

KEF has developed three flagship programmes: School Excellence (SEP), District Transformation Program (DTP) and State Transformation Program (STP) to reform the education scenario and The New Millionaire Program (TNMP) to build a cadre of nation builders.

Since its inception, KEF has partnered with many government, private and educational institutions to impact more than 1400 schools under the School Excellence Program in Rajasthan, Gujarat Maharashtra, Haryana and Uttarakhand. The District Transformation Program is currently being implemented in three districts: Jhunjhunu, Surat and Kheda, transforming over 3000 schools. The State Transformation Program is currently being implemented in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and in the National Capital Region of Delhi, impacting over 57 million students studying in more than 500,000 public schools.

KEF projects are presently being funded by United Sates Agency for International Development (USAID), Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), Porticus, Central Square Foundation, The Hans Foundation, EdelGive Foundation, Tata Communications Limited, HSBC, Kapadwanj Kelavani Mandal and Millennium Alliance.

KEF’s board members include Ajay Piramal (Chairman, Piramal Enterprise Ltd.) and Aditya Natraj (CEO, KEF). The senior management team of KEF includes 12 core team members with a combined experience of over a hundred years from across the fields of education, youth leadership, banking, media, corporate and legal consulting, psychology and manufacturing.

KEF envisions transforming India’s public education system to improve the life chances of 100 million students studying in India’s public schools.

The Rotary Club of Thane Hills, R.I. District 3142 was KEF’s local partner and assisted in overseeing the project. An NOC was obtained from Dist. 3142 for the same.

Rotarians from The Rotary Club of Bombay and the Rotary Club of Thane Hills worked closely with the KEF team to ensure regular reporting of the project’s progress. They also visited the school regularly to monitor the project and ensure its smooth running.