Enabling Systems Change in Post-Primary via NGO, Research and Philanthropic Collaborations

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

Testing and scaling a model to improve learning outcomes is not easy. When your aim is to embed such an intervention into the public school system in India, the level of difficulty goes up exponentially. The leadership team at Transform Schools can attest to the challenging nature of this endeavour from having undertaken it and succeeded, in the face of self and professional doubt, absence of serious funding and policy in post-primary, a research vacuum in secondary education among others.

As the team expands the scope of support being provided to school stakeholders and system partners, it becomes important to step outside the bubble of a start-up and engage with peers on what are real-world gains from programming when supporting students in secondary grades in public schools of India.

Transform Schools proposes to hold a session for funders, research partners, implementing organisations as well as academics on elements of non-profit educational programming. Through the use of participatory tools and activity-based group work, the session will be a platform to identify the needs, gaps and value propositions of cross sectoral and intersystem partnerships for implementation at scale and research opportunities in post-primary.

The session will explore the barriers and enablers when engaging with systems for impact and scale, role of research and evaluations to drive quality and scale partnerships and strategies. Transform Schools’ experience of testing and scaling our work from 25 to 57K schools and reaching 3.7 million children since operations began in 2019, will serve as a starting point to create dialogue and sharing of insights from participants’ own experiences.

The session will aim to kickstart a conversation and collaboration among organisations and build a growing community of practitioners and researchers invested in improving post-primary education in India’s public school system.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Workshop Organizers

• Pankaja Balaji, Transform Schools, People For Action

• Pankaj Vinayak Sharma, Transform Schools, People For Action

Presenter

• Shraddha Jha, Transform Schools, People For Action