Eklavya

The ‘Ground Zero’ piece tries to learn from organizations across the country that are innovating in the field of social sciences curriculum and pedagogy, and in the process, are building linkages between these subjects, the larger community, and their own organization practices.

In this issue, we also carry an interview with Eklavya, an organization that has been experimenting with plural ideas and practices of learning centers for more than two decades. It has used its experiences in these spaces for building deep engagements with the communities and people it works with, for improving learning-related processes in governmental schools, and in developing its grounded thinking about democratic education.

This article shares the experience of Eklavya in facilitating the publication of children’s literature in multiple Indian languages. It also shares some key challenges of working in this space.

Arvind Sardana examines the traditional role of NGOs in fostering a culture of experimentation and dialogue in the education space. He shows how market-oriented reforms by governments are shrinking the space for such work in the present times.

In “A string of failures: roadblocks, struggles and politics,” Arvind Sardana takes off where Hardy stops, with respect to the history of HSTP/Eklavya. He shows us the enormous challenges involved in working with the public education system, and what it takes to fail when the goal is its complete transformation toward equity and effective learning.

For this issue of ‘Samuhik Pahal’ Bookworm Goa has curated a list of six relevant books on the theme of going to school.