A. Challenges encountered
1. Poor learning at the time of entrance in grade 8 or 9 in the program, remains a challenge for all students - the exception are some classes of Grade 3 students from Gyan Shala who fare better than others.
2. Gyan Shala middle school children are not trained to write descriptive answers, and are used to answer multiple choice question types only. Enabling them to deal with standard high school examination requires changing the middle school curriculum and program, which has been initiated. In fact, changes in earlier stages have to start with grade 3 itself, if not earlier.
3. Unwillingness of students in Government schools to join Gyan Shala's classes in parallel to their 8th grade class.
4. Unwillingness of students in grade 10 to attend a longer class day.
5. Low aspiration and commitment of Gyan Shala students to try their best in high school.
6. Limited competence of average graduate students of Indian college/ university system, who then become teachers in the high school program.
IV. Lessons Learned and Moving Forward
B. Actions taken for improving results in the Grade 10 Board Examination
1. Worksheets have been prepared with more weight for questions which had been asked in the Board Examination, so students can prepare for the same from the beginning of the year, while working on different chapters in all the subjects. Previously, the design members and Grade 10 teachers were working with textbooks, while this year, in addition to the textbooks, worksheets for math, English, Sanskrit and Social Science have been introduced. The Gyan Shala team plans to introduce worksheets for Science and Gujarati in the coming year.
2. In 2016-17, supportive tuition for each Grade 10 student started in the month of July. In the previous years, it was done after completion of the first term.
3. Annual syllabi of all subjects have been completed at least two months prior to March 2017, with a view that the students get enough time to revise all the content covered for all subjects.
4. In 2015-16, the Gyan Shala team had found that Subject teachers had challenges in identifying students’ actual learning problems in many cases, and they were treating all the students equally. Although the teachers were working very hard with all the students, it still left some weak students not getting required attention. This year, from the beginning, Gyan Shala hired special Design team members who have been given responsibility to observe the students and support them wherever they need. In the subjects such as Science, Mathematics and English, Design team members are involved in direct teaching of the students - thus supplementing the work of regular teachers.
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