Gyan Shala Model: The Lucknow Challenge

Gyan Shala (GS) is an alternative education model aimed at educating children from the economically weaker sections and meeting learning outcomes comparable to an elite school curriculum. Such models emerge due to the failure of government and market in addressing universal education. GS developed a standardized model in which a well-trained teacher can deliver quality education at a low cost across classrooms. A highly qualified team takes care of material development, training teachers, distribution of classes and overall supervision. Regular feedback and improvement are at the crux of this innovative education model. Parents are charged a nominal fee to instil responsibility towards the child’s education. Assessments by international and national agencies indicate that students of GS perform on par with students from some of the best CBSE schools in India. This indicates the robustness of the model. While GS is present in four states, the organization is facing viability issues in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. The analysis focuses on finding a solution to this issue.

QUALITY EDUCATION

Quality education is a fundamental need/right of all citizens. However, it is not available as envisioned by the government of India. GS identified this need and started focussing on developing the curriculum and a model to meet this demand. GS was able to mobilize teachers, pupils, and resources to ensure the delivery of quality education. The model envisioned keeping the students at the centre and creating an ecosystem where students remain the centre of attention. The robustness of the model is highlighted by the fact that the New Education Policy (2016) of the Government of India recognized it as exemplary (Government of India, 2016). Preparation of educational materials based on global curriculums and quick updates based on ground-level feedback make it relevant for the intended audience, that is, children from poor communities. However, the model could not make profits and depended upon donors for meetings financial needs. The fee paid by students was notional in the overall scheme. It can be argued that if more funds can be raised from the students, more can be done to improve the quality of education. However, it defeats the very purpose of establishing GS, which was to serve poor communities. The recognition of GS’s students’ meritocracy by national and international evaluation agencies clearly indicates the quality of education delivered. However, the question remains: Can this model be scaled up in other desperate regions of the country?

QUALITY OF TEACHERS

The GS model was successful mainly because of the teachers working at the grassroots. While well-conceived study material is necessary for any education model to succeed, it requires committed teachers to achieve the results. GS recruited teachers with meticulousness to ensure that they work to achieve its vision. However, getting the right teachers may not always be possible. In the case of Lucknow, the organization faced issues of teachers with conflicting interests and high attrition rates. This was due to the lack of a proper management team in the city to oversee things. The challenges for GS are at multiple levels. Given the GS model, the best of teachers are not necessary at the ground level as the delivery largely depends on the materials prepared by the design team. Due to this, the management team might lose focus on recruiting the right teachers. Recruiting teachers to merely implement well-designed study material might not leave much scope for learning, due to which motivation levels may be low. Further, it might attract teachers who might not align with the vision and mission of GS. Presuming that the field-level teachers will become senior teachers and may go on to become supervisor or field officers, simply selecting individuals to deliver well-designed materials might create problems in the future. So far, GS has grown organically. If it wants to increase its impact, it needs to specify what characteristics are essential in teachers and then align the recruitment drive accordingly. It needs to be replicated for supervisors and field officers too.

FINANCIAL DEPENDENCE

Currently, there are 16 donors for GS, of which only 8 organizations have been contributing, regularly. GS needs to ensure that the organizations which have been regularly donating continue to do so. The organizations that are contributing sporadically need to be convinced that they continue to provide financial assistance in the near future. GS was unable to make significant income from the fees charged to the students. Hence other innovative options—such as sharing the expertise/materials prepared with private schools, education societies or state governments—to generate financial resources can be explored. However, a marketing team is essential to undertake such options. At present, GS does not have a marketing team. The recruitment of a marketing team aligned to the organization’s goals is essential for this purpose. However, this will once again stress the financial resources of GS.

INTERNAL COORDINATION

GS established a good team in the cities of Ahmedabad, Farrukhabad, and Patna. However, Lucknow’s operations have been a great challenge. The quality of the team and poor quality of management appear to be the problems. The lack of management led to increased costs per student in delivering the same level of education. The attrition rate was also higher in Lucknow classrooms due to lower salary. GS trusted in the good nature of the teachers who joined the organization not just for money but also due to the type of work done. This ethos may vary across the country due to differences in sociocultural norms. The overall coordination across field officers, senior supervisors, senior teachers, and teachers seems to be unbalanced in the case of Lucknow. Teachers were not monitored for their presence, and locations were not optimally chosen leading to failures at the ground level. However, it can also be posited that the lower quality of teachers also contributed to the failure of the GS’s initiative in Lucknow. Now GS needs to assess if Lucknow is an important city to prove its education model. If yes, then some of the best team members from other cities need to be brought in to improve coordination with the ground-level teachers. Overall planning needs to undergo change to ensure right location selection, proper assessment of the site for its ability to pool more students and reduce costs for GS. In the short run, GS should not worry about the costs but figure out processes to set the delivery of education right.

The biggest lesson that needs to be learnt from the Lucknow episode is about considering every city unique and start from ground up. Many times, organizations tend to get into an auto-pilot mode when implementing a successful model. Another important thing that needs to be taken into account is that all the levels of employees and departments in GS should be given due respect for their contributions. The design focus on GS might create a feeling that the teachers’ job is just to get the material implemented for children. It is better to check the thought process across the organization, thereby making every contribution fruitful to achieve GS’s vision and mission.

OVERALL STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

The blueprint of a strategy platform, as suggested by Rangan (2004), will come in handy for GS to come up with a suitable path for a successful future. Four significant things can be done to ensure that GS becomes a well-established and large-scale education model, that is, (a) funder and donor development, (b) organization development and governance, (c) client and market development, and finally (d) programme and service development and delivery.

Funder and Donor Development

GS needs to establish solid funder and donor support to continue its growth. Establishing good links with organizations supporting the cause of universal education will help. At the same time, GS needs to develop strong linkages with individuals, organizations, corporations to ensure continued financial support for its activities. The eclectic board of GS can help to some extent create these linkages. However, a separate team constantly working towards these relations would help take the education model to more states and more children in India. GS can sell its well-curated academic content to students at large via publications, to schools interested in improving student performance, and to governments interested in enhancing the quality of education. This will create a stream of funds for the sustainability and scaling up of the initiative.

Organization Development and Governance

Translate strategies into the organization’s system, norms and values. Currently, the organization seems to be working well, but it requires well-established systems and processes to guide employees at different levels. Some of the steps in this direction can be creating a succession plan, since Dr Pankaj, will retire very soon. The design team needs to be made more robust to ensure that they not only curate content for GS but also prepare books for a wider children’s audience. The creation of a strategy team that will work with all levels of employees and give a sense of direction, will help in the long run. A marketing team to ensure that the services of GS are marketed to relevant people and organizations for raising funds will ensure sustainability.

Client and Market Development

Currently, GS considers children and parents to be the main stakeholders and its market. Moving forward, this ideology needs to change to consider teachers working at the ground level and supervisory levels as important members. The organization needs to publicize its work for the benefit of other similar organizations interested in working towards universal education. It can also extend consultancy to organizations or schools interested in improving its curriculum or materials for teaching. This will not only bring in revenue but also increase the soft power for policy advocacy by GS.

Programme and Service Development and Delivery

GS needs to continuously introspect about distinctive aspects of its product/service delivery model. It needs to constantly figure out more effective/efficient ways of delivering the programme. Further, it needs to stress on developing resources, capabilities, and systems required to scale up the education model across the country.