The country has made significant strides in enrolling more than 95% of its children into schools. However, there are big gaps in the child’s learning appropriate to its class. Pratham’s assessment based on its ten nationwide annual surveys (ASER Report) since 2005 to 2015, shows that a significant proportion of children cannot read, write and even do basic arithmetic suitable to their class. Read India program addresses this problem by training young volunteers from villages to work in their respective village schools for providing remedial support for the needy children.
The support is often in the form of intensive range of activities such as” learning camps”. A learning camp is a short-duration, high-intensity intervention in which children are divided into groups based on their learning levels and not according to their grades. The camps extend for a period of 25 to 30 days over a span of three month duration which are broken into 3 to 4 phases. Each phase lasts for 8 to 10 days wherein the volunteer uses language and math packages, developed by Pratham Mysore, to teach children. In between the camps, children are left with work sheets that they refer to with the help of tutors. Appropriate pre-test and post test evaluation will follow the camps for tracking the progress achieved by children.