An out-of-the-box thinking, which led to educated senior students mentoring their juniors during the Covid-19 pandemic, has resulted in better learning retention in a few villages in Mysuru district.
Conceived by Pratham Mysore, an NGO working in the field of education, the Student Mentoring Programme (SMP) has caught the imagination of a few educationists who intend to introduce mentoring as a compulsory subject in the B.Ed course.
Explaining the genesis of Student Mentoring Programme, Ashvini Ranjan, who is pioneering Pratham Mysore’s activities in the region, said that the NGO had launched a Model Village Programme in 2017. Under this programme, it adopted Hyaknur, Mavinahalli, Sujjalur and Muthathi in T. Narsipura taluk to shore up the learning abilities of children in government schools.
The concept of model village programme was based on the premise that education of a child is not the responsibility of schools alone, but is a collaborative effort of the entire community.
The initiative was delivering positive results, but came to a halt due to COVID-19. The closure of schools from March 2020 caused discontinuity in learning.
Given the absence of a conducive environment at homes in villages for education as compared to their counterparts in towns and cities, the threat of students falling behind their urban counterparts was genuine and was bound to have negative repercussions in the long run, said Mr. Ashvini Ranjan.
The challenges faced by rural children during such disruptions could become unsurmountable in future as various studies, including Pratham’s Annual Status Education Report (ASER), indicate that more than 50% of primary school children in rural areas are three levels behind grade-appropriate learning, he added.
Hence, Pratham Mysore introduced the Student Mentoring Program (SMP) in which one reasonably educated adult – called a mentor – is paired with one student in a village to guide and motivate them besides discussing subjects of importance and interest to the children. The concept is rooted in the belief that continuity of learning holds the key to eliminating any learning loss.
Lessons were printed on paper and delivered to the homes of children in the four villages. Short videos were shared with children who had smartphones.
So, when the schools reopened in February 2022 after a gap of nearly two years, an assessment indicated the positive results of the Student Mentoring Programme.
Students in the age group of 6 to 14 years were administered tests in the presence of village leaders. But to determine a loss or a gain, it was necessary to compare with a group outside the experimental area; children in two other villages too were administered the same test for comparison.
The results indicated that 27% of the Model Village Programme children could read a grade-appropriate English lesson as against 13% outside the programme; 91% of children covered in the programme could read their lesson in Kannada as against 46% outside the programme. The test also indicated that 58% performed better in maths as against 12% outside the programme, said Mr. Ashvini Ranjan.
Student mentoring has now become a part of the Model Village Programme and Pratham Mysore is extending the initiative to eight more villages. The model is easy to replicate with almost no big financial investment and is expected to go a long way in shoring up the quality of learning among students in rural areas, he added.
