Visit in Colombia

Escuela Nueva received the EN Representative in India, Deepti Doshi and future teacher trainers Irfan Baig y Poonam Rana. With the purpose of training and going through the process of formation in order to implement EN in India. The invites visited two schools in Paipa and one in Tunja, while additionally going through an EN Workshops.  On May 13th, 2010, together with Pedro Pablo Ramirez, Isabel Romero and Susy Cabrales they visited the school El Salitre and San Jose located in Paipa.

At El Salitre School, they were able to observe the application of EN from nursery level until fifth grade. They met with teachers to share ideas and experiences on the implementation of EN and different tools used in the classroom.

They highlighted the benefits that students, families and the community have received through the program.  At San José School, the participants where able to observe how this school is able to efficiently educate mutli-grade classrooms using EN methods.

On May 14th, 2010 they visited Institución Gimnasio Santander. This is a private school that covers nursery through fifth grade. This school is located in an urban area of Tunja. At this school they where able to visit different grade levels, converse with teachers, students and directives. The participants from India appreciated the leadership and responsibility skills characterize children who experience the EN education.

The members of Escuela Nueva – India left Bogotá and are prepared to implement EN in private schools in the urban sector.  This visit marks the beginning of Escuela Nueva presence and the educational change in India. The influence of Escuela Nueva continues to expand every day.

Activities

Since  2006, the Indian government has been studying the Escuela Nueva model: the first study mission was deployed by the World Bank in 1996 and more recently, UNICEF organized a visit of Education Secretaries from various states to visit EN in Colombia.

Building on this interest and ENF´s belief in India´s potential to adapt the model, we are identifying implementation partners to pilot the model to work with both government and low-cost private schools.

Government Schools:

Currently Escuela Nueva has partnered with CfBT to bring its methodology to 105 multigrade rural government schools in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. During the pre-pilot phase (from May 2010- April 2011), we will be working to adapt our community – oriented strategies to strengthen the voices of parents around these government schools.

Low –cost Private Schools:

Escuela Nueva is eager to bring low cost strategies to support low cost private schools in urban areas and explore an alternate business model that allows for greater sustainability. We are currently identifying partners for this work and will likely focus on Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

Over the course of this coming pilot year (2010 – 2011), our goal is to demonstrate the effectiveness of its methodology locally in India and to build local capacity to prepare future scale (both internally and with its partners) and to collect feedback such that the methodologies can be adjusted to the local Indian context (language, culture, etc.) in order to scale.