This article is published in collaboration with Ekstep Foundation.
Over 25 years of working in the field of inclusive education has led Sonali Saini to a glaring problem – it’s not that India lacks inclusive policies and frameworks. It is a subject that has to be fought hard for implementation.
She notes, “There’s a lot involved, but How do we create an inclusive school?”
Without inclusive and later good learning opportunities, India faces serious problems when it comes to early childhood care and development. In fact, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has highlighted that more than five crore children currently in primary school have not achieved basic literacy and numeracy. The current educational system is such, it adds, that once a student falls behind in this basic learning, they maintain a flat learning curve for years, never able to catch up.
For the past two decades, Sonali and her organization, Seoul’s ARC, have worked to understand this problem in depth. In 2003, he founded a non-profit organization to build inclusive education and livelihood solutions that use innovative tools to encourage better learning and life outcomes. They aim to make these solutions scalable, so they can be used through partnerships with other stakeholders such as NGOs, government, and so on.
“The trip has been about what an inclusive school looks like in a country like India, where there are not many resources, where even buying crayons, chairs, tables is a big challenge,” explains Sonali. chat with Uttam IndiaThey said their work has impacted four million children and young adults.
an ‘approach to life’
What is notable about Seoul’s ARC work is its collaboration with the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh to improve basic literacy and inclusive education. These interventions serve as examples of how the reach and implementation of existing policies can be broadened to impact millions of children.
In Madhya Pradesh, there is the Ankur Project, which focuses on building basic literacy (English) and numeracy (Mathematics) through an inclusive curriculum for teachers and students from Class 1 to Class 3. This was done in collaboration with the State Education Centre. Major Department working towards State FLN Programme.
Sol’s ARC analyzes that non-inclusive pedagogy, non-conceptual FLN frameworks, and low teacher capacities are the main reasons India’s most vulnerable children are not learning as they should. Sonali says, “When you look at (high-income) countries, their solutions are very high-cost — assistive technology, accessible content… which may not be possible in a country like ours, which has low digital penetration. Moreover, teacher ratio and special teacher ratio are unmatched,” he added. Government data shows that the teacher ratio has declined from 43 in 2010-11 to 26.3 in 2020-21.
Seoul’s ARC, she says, focuses more on education outcomes, with the latter aiming to increase livelihood opportunities. “We work from a lifetime perspective because working on education alone may not be enough. It doesn’t make sense if children are still living at home after completing education. So to improve life outcomes, we include under our focus the age group of 5 to 39 years.”
More kids, more ways to learn
Under Project Ankur, the institution has adopted a Universal Design for Teaching and Learning (UDL) approach, which “gives all students an equal opportunity to succeed”.
UDL is a framework that emphasizes a flexible learning environment that accommodates individual learning differences. “It basically says ‘teach in multiple ways, allow the child to respond in multiple ways’… Teaching-learning materials should have multiple modalities,” explains Sonali.
It aims to bring flexibility to these arenas so that they can be adjusted to the individual learner’s strengths and needs. They say it’s a low-tech, low-cost approach that’s perfect for India’s low-resource class. Learning resources include a wide variety of adaptive methods.
For example, to teach subtraction, a teacher can use blocks, number lines, customized worksheets, and flash cards. “Now you’ve shown the child all the ways to learn and it depends on the child which way they want to go,” explains Sonali. “You’ll also have multiple ways of assessment. That way, you allow different kids with different abilities to answer the same question in their own way.”
So if a child is non-verbal, schools don’t rely solely on verbal tests. Instead, the child can respond by pointing to the correct answer or writing it down. If a child has a reading challenge, the child may receive help as a reader. “Instructions are broken down, turned into scenes… then all children benefit from these interventions,” she points out.
The program also addressed the challenge of multi-grade classrooms by breaking up the curriculum. This type of learning environment can be challenging due to monograde teaching materials, low availability of teachers, rigid schedules, and so on.
The organization estimates that about 78% of primary schools in India have three or fewer teachers for all levels. “So we created multi-grade plans, in which we say here are your common activities, here is what you will do separately, and that’s how we address the challenges that teachers face.”
Edited by Pranita Bhat; All photos courtesy: Estep Foundation