People, not numbers: A systems approach to sustainable education change in India

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday III)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Sustainable education as humanities education

Proposal

Currently, there is national level interest in India to change the habit of actors in states, districts, and schools, but the inertia of existing structures has made it difficult to translate intentions down. The question then becomes: how can this top-down system be altered to affect change that reimagines the way data is utilized to support district and school-level needs? And finally, can this be a sustainable change in the system?
Since 2008, Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) has pioneered education leadership and behavior change management in the Indian public education system. It has aimed to foster meaning, learning, joy, and pride in every stakeholder in the system by focusing on aspects of self-motivation and engagement. In the effort to create a culture of well-being, KEF has recognized that two pressing needs remain unfulfilled: 1) Teachers need to make use of data for self-reflection and continuous improvement of their teaching practices while supporting those changes in their colleagues; 2) Districts or clusters need to start regularly leveraging available data for system improvement.
In response, KEF has developed a system-focused model that concentrates on the needs of each tier (district administration, school leadership, teacher in the classroom) by innovatively leveraging data. Data collected on administrative, pedagogical and instructional practices is utilized where it is collected. Teachers, principals, and district officials make meaning of data that is directly tied to their domain.
Next, bridging these values into the broader system has meant engaging Cluster Resource Centres (CRCs) and Block Resource Centres (central teacher training agencies) to think beyond their business-as-usual assumptions around teacher monitoring and to aim for a broader goal of supporting teacher performance in the classroom. Simple practices, such as classroom observation and evaluating performance using the Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System (TIPPS), have elicited highly empathetic and supportive reactions from the CRCs. Having access to reliable, school cluster-specific data allows them to pivot from being data purveyors to data users, and this impacts the messages a district conveys forward to policy makers at the state and national levels.
This reconceptualized, stakeholder focused model is built upon efforts towards self-reflection, improvement and keeping the momentum of change going. Therefore, a paradigm of sustainability, based on the individuals at those levels in the system, is inherently integrated into the model. The model builds through proximal efforts of sustainability, such as the integration of Gandhi Fellows to keep the momentum of implementation to develop organizational memory that sustains the healthy self-evaluation process in the future. Results from the state of Gujrat indicate a willingness by teachers, principals, and district officials to bring about change based on data about their schools and districts. This is attributed to sharing of common goals and objectives as well as horizontal sharing and integration of data-driven strategies and solutions, promising indicators of sustainable culture shift in these schools.

Authors

• Monal Jayaram Poduval, , Centre of Excellence for Assessments & Teacher Leadership with Piramal Foundation For Education Leadership

• Mahjabeen Raza, New York University

• Sharon Kim, New York University

• Edward Seidman, New York University