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D I I G A N T A R
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P R O V I I D I I N G Q U A L I I T Y E D U C A T I I O N T O
U N D E R P R I I V I I L E G E D C H I I L D R E N
Who : Digantar Shiksha Evam Khelkud Samiti
Where : Jagatpura, outskirts of Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
Number of children benefited
500 children(70% muslim) in the 3 schools that Digantar runs and indirectly, all the children of the groups Digantar works with.
The Beginning
Digantar emerged out of a small free school for children from underprivileged sections, having 20-25 children and two teachers, that operated for about 10 years from 1978 to 1988.
The primary concerns of the school were
 improve the quality of education in terms of academics as well as values.
 develop teaching methods based on self- learning, cooperation, freedom of the child, the thrill of the learning in place of the methods based on forced rote learning, fear, drudgery, competition etc.
Today, Digantar has a campus spread over more than 2 acres which includes a school, teacher's residences and a training centre with adequate facilities to conduct residential training programs for up to 40 people at a time.
It has a rich library that subscribes to many journals and is equipped with plenty of books on elementary education.
One of the major achievements of Digantar is that it has engaged with the philosophical issues of learning while working with children from deprived communities.
Philosophy
The objective of Digantar’s education is to help the child become an independent and motivated learner. Given the nature of human learning process such a program can be built only upon the child’s existing understanding and skills. This is the principle from which all their activities and pedagogy evolves.
Digantar believes in
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Education for All
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Quality Education
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Education for Social Change
Alternative Elementary Education Project
This is a set of three schools that Digantar runs for underprivileged children in the outskirts of Jaipur. The ideas and theoretical formulations developed here are used in various organizations that Digantar interacts with.
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Girl : Boy ratio - 1:1
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Student -Teacher Ratio – 21:1
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3 schools, 410 children in primary and 90 children in upper primary.
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The schools are situated in rural areas just outside
Jaipur. Almost all children come either from minority (about 70% Muslim Children) or from scheduled caste backgrounds. The parents work as gem-cutters in Jaipur.
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Education is completely free for children. No fee is charged and the school provides all the needed teaching-learning material, books and stationery.
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The children are not divided into forced homogeneous classes. Each group consists of 20-23 children who are at different levels of learning.
Students working on class assignment in groups
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Learning in cooperation and peer learning is also encouraged among children.
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After taking the fifth standard Rajasthan Board
Examination, many of the children join the government schools. Some continue in the Upper
Primary program of Digantar.
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In addition to about 300 children who have completed primary education, 6 or 7 girls have completed Senior Higher Secondary Education and two or three are going for college education.
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Community Involvement - The community gave land for one of the three schools, collected a sum of around Rs. 25,000 and constructed a semi-pucca building. For a second school, the community provided land and also bore 50% of the cost of the hand-pump for this school.
The Ratwali School: One of the three schools that
Digantar runs.
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The teachers regularly interact with the parents to understand their views on the schools and get feedback on their children’s education.
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Teachers spend at least two hours every day in preparation for the next day’s work One day a week is dedicated to the theoretical/philosophical as well as practical problems of teaching.
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The Ministry of Human Resource Development,
Government of India, financially supported this program till April 2002.

Shiksha Vimarsh
Shiksha Vimarsh is an attempt to create a discourse in educational theory and practice in Hindi. Eight issues of this journal, which addresses various pedagogical issues and concerns, have been published so far. People working in education at various levels, right from teachers to teacher educators and educationists in general have appreciated the journal. It is slowly acquiring more readership.
The Bhandyali School: Class rooms arranged in a circular fashion with a common area in the center. The names on the classroom walls are the name of the groups
(in which the children are organized)
Curriculum Development
The range of curricular material Digantar has prepared is large. They include storybooks for children, introductory books on a subject, workbooks, guidebooks for teachers and self-instructional material for children.
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Digantar believes that both content and pedagogy are important in curriculum development and that the content and process of education are inseparable in practice.
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Curriculum is divided into five streams(Language,
Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Handicrafts,
Expressive Arts) of learning which move concurrently in elementary education.
 Digantar’s Teaching/Learning materials are designed for simple handling, are easy to adapt and to make, inexpensive . They can be used in a variety of ways.
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Teaching-learning methodologies based on learner’s initiative and independence in learning, learning with cooperation and freedom of pace of learning is also developed.
Since the evaluation in these schools is based on daily observation of the child, role of the teacher becomes very vital. Teacher undergo 4 months training to learn various teaching methodologies, the philosophy of education etc.
This teacher training program is also used by many other groups and the government. Some of the highlights of this program are:
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The trainees work on recognizing and developing sound teaching methods consistent with the philosophy of Digantar rather than drilling in particular teaching skills and methods. Particular methods and skill are taken up only to build up a repertoire of examples of both acceptable as well as unacceptable methods.
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Chosen books on education are read and analyzed in the group to form a consistent and coherent understanding of elementary education. People who know about elementary education are invited to interact with the group and share their ideas.
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Creative activities like story/poem writing, painting, play-acting, singing etc. are also organized.
Another classroom scene
Involvement with Government and Other Groups
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Helped Urmul Trust, Bikaner, in conceptualizing one of their education programs called Marushalas . Their teachers were also trained at Digantar.
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Provided resource support to Lok Jumbish in
Rajasthan by training core group members, supervisors and teachers, evolving teaching methodology; school organization and evaluation.
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Given resource support to the Rajiv Gandhi Shiksha
Mission, Madhya Pradesh’s Alternate Schooling program, a component of District Primary Education
Program (DPEP) in the form of training packages for supervisors and teachers and development of teaching/learning material and evaluation packages.
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Under the Education Guarantee System (EGS) in
Madhya Pradesh, a curriculum based mostly on
Digantar’s and some other innovative programs
(Eklavya etc) was introduced to 27,000 schools.
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20 schools of Bharat Gyan-Vigyan Samiti, Haryana are using Digantar’s teaching-learning material.
Digantar also conducted their initial teacher training.
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Undertaken evaluation of impact of DPEP intervention in Kerala.
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Working with government primary schools in
Jhotwara Panchayat Samiti of Jaipur district.
Funding Requirements
Funds required for continuing the alternative education program at the present scale
Rs. 2,400,795
($53,300)
Funds required for Vimarsh
Total Funding required per year
Rs. 321,000
($7,133)
$60,433
Further Information
More information can be found at http://www.ashanet.org/seattle/proj/digantar/digantar.html
Any further queries can be addressed to asha-seattle-info@yahoogroups.com