Minimising Learning Losses

Several reports in the recent years have indicated that while there has been a remarkable increase in school enrolments, there are significant gaps that have emerged in the learning outcomes. Moreover, the pandemic has further induced learning disruptions which has aggravated these gaps further. This gap in foundational learning prevents children from coping with what is expected of them in higher grades and highlights an urgent need to improve learning outcomes through remedial learning. 

The biggest challenge facing India’s schooling system today is to ensure that every child has equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes. Keeping this in mind, P&G India under its flagship CSR programme ‘P&G Shiksha’ aims to provide the means to education to underprivileged children in the country – moving away from purely focusing on infrastructural gaps and accessibility issues to focus on influencing Systemic Change in the education landscape of lower income segments of India.

In an exclusive interview with BW Education, LV Vaidyanathan, CEO & MD, P&G India, on International Literacy Day, shares detailed information on company's CSR programme P&G Shiksha. Edited excerpts:

What is P&G Shiksha program?

At P&G, our endeavour is to be a 'force for growth' and a 'force for good' in the communities we serve and to touch and improve the lives of people. This is naturally woven into the way we work every day. We launched our flagship CSR program ‘P&G Shiksha’ in 2005 with the vision of providing means to education to underprivileged children in the country. Over the years, P&G Shiksha has evolved into a 360-degree, holistic education initiative targeting communities across the country, with the aim to improve learning outcomes in children by strengthening educational infrastructure, remediating learning gaps and empowering marginalised girls through education.

Elaborate on the initiatives under this program and the company's recent collaborations focussed on providing the means to education to underprivileged children.

We are partnering with reputed non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with a focus on implementing unique and innovative programs for education. We are working to strengthen children’s learning environment, minimise learning gaps and improve learning outcomes in children through on-ground remedial learning interventions, early childhood education and technology-based digital remedial learning. We are also working towards empowering marginalised girls through holistic infrastructure and learning interventions.

Together with Round Table India, we are enhancing education infrastructure in varied ways, including but not limited to constructing new classrooms, building playgrounds and improving health and hygiene facilities for children like clean drinking water and separate toilets for girls and boys at schools. With this, our objective is to make the environment more conducive to learning by increasing enrolments, reducing dropouts, driving lesson- efficiency for teachers, encouraging students and therefore, overall higher learning level.

We are driving on-ground remedial learning interventions in partnership with Pratham Education Foundation, through a community based and an ‘in-school’ model, together with the support of trained volunteers from within the community and teachers at school. During the lockdown, the program adopted a digital outreach model by leveraging technology and mobilizing the community volunteers, to ensure learning continuity. As schools begin to reopen, in addition to our digital outreach, we are conducting learning camps focused on strengthening foundational learning levels in children. This is aimed at ensuring school readiness, with the support of our community volunteers.

We are also leveraging technology to improve learning outcomes in children. In partnership with Educational Initiatives, we are implementing ‘Mindspark’, a computer-based adaptive learning tool to remediate learning gaps in students. The tool integrates pedagogy, teacher instruction and a learning management system to assess a student’s learning level and develop a customised learning path for each one of them. During the pandemic-induced school closure, we upgraded the tool to make it available on smartphones, to enable children to continue learning from the safety of their homes and minimise learning losses.

Through our Early Childhood Education program in partnership with Pratham Education Foundation, we are focusing on developing motor, cognitive, social-emotional, language and creative skills in children, thereby setting them up for a strong start as they begin their education journey.

In partnership with Save The Children, we are working towards breaking gender-biased barriers to education faced by girls in the country. Under this initiative, we are supporting 49 government-run residential Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya’s (KGBV) and 36 regular schools across 7 districts of Rajasthan to provide quality education to girls through holistic infrastructure and learning interventions. We also continue to engage parents to emphasise continuity of education and minimise dropouts.

Additionally, we are also proactively working towards enabling STEM careers for girls via the ‘P&G Shiksha Betiyan Scholarship Program’, in partnership with the Centre For Civil Society (CCS). As per reports, women only make up 14 per cent of the STEM workforce in India. We aim to bridge this gap by empowering girls seeking to pursue STEM education, through essential financial aid and mentorship, with the end goal of supporting the entry of skilled women professionals into the manufacturing and production industries.

With CCS, we are also implementing ‘Project Bolo English’, which aims to help students from low-income families build and strengthen their written and spoken English skills, as a means to unlock better opportunities for them in the future.

Lastly, our manufacturing plants are also actively supporting their neighboring communities in partnership with local NGOs and working every day to improve lives.

What impact do you believe this program can have on the lives of underprivileged children?

The pandemic has had a significant impact on education levels in the country by widening the learning gap.

As per the World’s Learning Poverty Index 2019, 55 per cent of school-going children could not read and understand a short age-appropriate text by class 5. This figure shot up to 70 per cent post-pandemic. National Achievement Survey (NAS) in 2017 and 2021 indicated that the nationwide education levels decreased by 7 per cent during the pandemic.

Additionally, the National Education Policy 2020 accords ‘highest priority to achieve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy for all students by Grade 3’. It was also stressed that the remaining aspects of the policy will be relevant for students only if the basic requirement of foundational learning is achieved.

Through our remedial learning programs, we are working towards bridging learning gaps in children with a twin-fold objective - improving basic foundational skills in children to set them up for fast-paced growth in school and improving learning outcomes in children to strengthen their conceptual understanding of essential subjects. And we are seeing the impact in terms of improved learning levels. Last year, at the end of the intervention, more than 70 per cent of students were able to read as per their expected learning levels compared to less than 25 per cent at the beginning of the intervention.

With the Early Childhood Initiative, more than 80 per cent of children in the intervention group demonstrated socio-emotional, cognitive, motor and language skills at the end of the intervention last year.

Over the years, we have supported more than 2500 schools with infrastructure enhancement, that will impact over 23 lakh children in need.

Our initiatives are designed in line with the Government’s Samagra Shiksha Abhiyaan and our efforts are in line with the motto outlined in the New Education Policy – Educate, Encourage, Enlighten!