In order to address the lack of access to Elementary Education, the Government of India launched a number of ground-breaking initiatives, such as the “Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan” and the “Integrated plan of Samagra Shiksha,” as a result of which we now have almost universal access. Although this is a significant victory for the nation, it also comes with the knowledge that there are still many quality issues that need to be resolved. In order to implement system reform, the States of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha launched Project SATH-Education (Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital-Education) in 2017.
Through the Challenged Method Guidelines of the Government of India, these three states were chosen from a group of fourteen interested states. The goal was to identify the states with the greatest educational challenges and the greatest need for systemic reforms. Since then, all three SATH states, including the state of Odisha, have seen significant improvements in educational access, equity, and learning outcomes. However, there is still work to be done, especially given the impact school cancellations caused by the epidemic have had on student learning levels over the past two years.
Project SATH prioritised structural and governance improvements in addition to learning interventions as part of its comprehensive approach to school education reform. This was supported by the idea that the foundational elements of successful in-class interventions include right-sized schools with the requisite teacher strength, solid organisational structures, governance, and accountability based on data.
Before Project SATH began, a thorough diagnostic of the state of school education in Odisha was carried out in 2017. According to NAS ratings, Odisha’s learning results were below the national average for all grade levels; for class 5, scores fell by 17 to 21 points between 2011 and 2014. The tremendous demand on a school’s resources—often only having 1-2 teachers—and the 42% of primary schools with enrollments under 50 resulted in multi-grade teaching. There was a tonne of data being gathered, but there was no single source of truth to enable organised assessments for data-driven decision making.
The Learning Enhancement Program (LEP), which aims to enhance learning outcomes through remediation, was one of many treatments created to fill these gaps. Another was the Garima School Certification, which aims to foster healthy competition among schools for better learning results. (3) The launch of the Odisha School Monitoring Application (OSMA) for continuing monitoring at the school level and data-driven decision making (4) School consolidation to maximise the use of resources at surrounding smaller schools.
The programmes were called Ujjwal (grades 1-5), Utthan (grades 6-8), and Utkarsh (grades 1–9) when Odisha first introduced LEP in 2018. (grade 9). These were based on the “Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL)” idea, which encourages teachers to conduct lessons at the real learning levels of their pupils rather than focusing on completing a traditional curriculum as stipulated by the grade and age. The programmes included a 40-day remedial Learning Camp at the start of the school year, followed by two remedial sessions the rest of the way through. Learning outcomes increased by 10% to 15% as a result of the LEP. In addition, the state’s focus on the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy(FLN) Program in accordance with NEP-2020, scheduled to debut, was influenced by programme learnings.
The programmes included a 40-day learning camp for remediation at the start of the school year, followed by two remediation sessions throughout the remainder of the year. Learning outcomes were improved by 10 to 15 percent as a result of the LEP. Additionally, lessons learned from the programme prompted the state to prioritise the FLN Program, which is scheduled to begin in the academic year 2022–2023 and is aligned with NEP–2020.
The second important tool to enhance learning outcomes was Garima Certification, which recognised and rewarded schools by fostering healthy competition. The programme had three levels: bronze, silver, and gold, which were determined by the percentage of students who demonstrated grade-level proficiency. All primary schools were eligible to submit themselves for evaluation, which was followed by independent verification by the state apparatus to determine if the school should be classified as Bronze or Silver. About 24,000 schools applied in 2019, and over the course of 6-7 months, 2800 schools received silver certification and 8700 schools received bronze certification. State and district administrators honoured and acknowledged these, and the entire process sparked a lot of excitement among school administrators to be referred to as top-performing schools.
Third, the “Odisha School Monitoring App,” or OSMA, was introduced to monitor schools, give middle management and schools immediate input on areas that needed improvement, and assess progress over time. The application offers monitoring for district and state authorities as well as cluster, block, and school headmasters. Through a regular governance cadence that includes meetings at the state, district, and block levels with pre-determined agendas, the data from OSMA has been crucial in enabling data-based decision making.
Fourth, the Odisha school consolidation project has had fruitful results. Sub-scale schools lack the size, capability, and resources necessary to provide high-quality instruction. The government of Odisha authorised a daring large-scale merger programme and unveiled an expansive vision for the state in March 2020. There were 2,000 or so same campus schools consolidated. For the second phase, consolidation and optimization are underway.
It was crucial to develop a detailed and comprehensive guideline for the implementation modalities in order to ensure that implementation at the district, block, and school levels was carried out without impeding access. Following the dissemination of these principles, training sessions for each stage were conducted with the District and Block Level Officers. To guarantee their successful adoption at scale, tracking these modalities was also crucial. To determine the distance between potential satellite schools and lead schools, an analysis of GIS data from every sub-scale school was conducted.
District and block officers carried out on-site verification to confirm the viability of mergers for each satellite school in order to guarantee parity in access for all pupils. While approving school consolidation, factors like geographic relief, population, and physical barriers like railroad tracks, interstates, and rivers without bridges were also taken into consideration. The State Level School Consolidation Committee (SLSCC) was then presented with the list of suggested schools for final approval. Following an analysis of the provided data and approval of consolidations in accordance with the established standards.
A grievance redressal structure was also established at the local, district, and state levels to ensure the success of consolidation. The District Grievance Cell then looked into these allegations through on-site investigations and provided a fact-finding report to the District Collector. The state further looked into all recommendations, authorised or rejected the grievance, and suggested whether to move through with or stop the school consolidation after the District Collector studied these reports that were presented. All of this was done to ensure that no student’s ability to access the school would be hindered.
Since the start of Project SATH, the state has made significant progress. The performance of Odisha in the PGI rankings is evidence of this. In the PGI Assessment of 2019–20, Odisha shown improvement for all five factors (learning outcome and quality, access, infrastructure, equity, and governance). The state improved from position 13 to position 7 in NITI Aayog’s SEQI Rankings. However, as in the majority of Indian states, learning losses have resulted from school closures brought on by the pandemic. It will therefore be crucial at this point for the state to deal with issues in mission mode before starting their at-scale transformation path again.
Prasanta Patnaik 
amfnews