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Akshar Forum
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A paradigm shift is underway

Helping schools switch to the Indian Model

Akshar Forum is a free 100-student model school established in 2016 in Assam, India. It is a testing facility for innovative teaching methods, in line with India's National Education Policy of 2020 (NEP 2020).

Akshar has launched a project to implement the NEP 2020 model in 100 government schools in Assam in 3 years.

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A model for transforming government schools into sustainable communities

Capacity building for Government school teachers

Akshar has partnered with the Government of India to offer training and equipment, enabling Government teachers in 100 Assam schools to make the switch to the Indian Education Model. 

Teachers learn to incorporate holistic measures of NEP 2020 including Individual Student Tracking, Skill-based groupings, Peer Learning, Instructional Technology, Vocational/Entrepreneurship Training, and Sustainable Community Development. 

Government Schools

Partnering with
the Government of India
to transform schools

PM Schools for Rising India

In 2022, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched
the PM Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) initiative, to help
14,500 schools across the nation make the change to
the new Indian model. 

The plan will provide hi-tech resources to each selected school worth approximately 2 crores Indian Rupees
(or INR 20 million). Now, schools are racing to make the switch, implementing the required criteria to become holistic green schools with a student-centred pedagogy, focus on technology, and vocational skills development.

Here is a gallery of government school leaders and teachers making the switch to the new Indian model:

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Innovation towards a low-cost,
child-centred pedagogy 

Meta-teaching

Meta-teaching

Meta-teaching is a system devised to ensure that all young children receive the daily individual support and encouragement they need for successful Early Education.

Teachers train and employ older students as teaching assistants. The adult teachers supervise and teach the older students how to teach. Meta-teaching benefits adult teachers, student-coaches, and especially young students.

Daily one-on-one for every child

Daily private lessons

Many children lack the home support they need to succeed in school. Akshar ensures every young child gets daily private mentoring from an older student, under the guidance of an adult teacher. â€‹

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The children are thrilled to spend one-on-one time learning from a teen. Teens can often relate to the children better than adults.

Private lessons for all

Many children lack the home support they need to succeed in school. Akshar ensures every young child gets daily private mentoring from an older student, under the guidance of an adult teacher. â€‹

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The children are thrilled to spend one-on-one time learning from a teen. Teens can often relate to the children better than adults.

Older students help adults teach young ones...

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...giving adults more time to focus on the teens in their own class...

... and transforming teens into community leaders

Learning & Earning

Many teens are under tremendous pressure to drop out of school to start earning. To promote self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship, students are employed by Akshar and earn points as wages. Points can be redeemed for rewards like schools supplies, basic sundries, hygiene products and clothing.

These "earnings" enable at-risk teens to work part-time for some of their basic needs, which empowers them to stay in school, rather than drop out to perform casual labour. They learn that staying in school leads to higher earnings. In the process, they develop professionalism, confidence, and a strong work ethic.

 

Learn more to earn more

Students wages are based on their academic level and their teaching skill. Students are incentivized to learn more so they can earn more. In order to teach concepts to the young ones, they are required to engage key faculties like creativity, critical thinking, and metacognition on a daily basis.
 
To measure teaching skill, each student self-evaluates their level of effective communication, empathy, patience and their ability to inspire their student. 

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Technology with a human touch

Technology

Limitless learning resources

Akshar has developed a free software built upon Kolibri from Learning Equality, a US based charity. The Akshar Kolibri app allows each student to sign in with a unique profile, which tracks the student's individual learning level, and provides custom-tailored exercises to suit their needs, in their mother tongue, as well as in Hindi and English.

Students who lack the technology at home gain essential digital literacy, and students are far more engaged by the interactive learning games, stories, exercises and tests than by conventional learning materials. Older students are introduced to coding and robotics.