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1. INTRODUCTION Pratham Mumbai Education Initiative (PMEI) was set up in December 1993, and registered as a charity under the Public Trust Act in Mumbai in 1995 (Registration Number 15454/1994-Mumbai). The decision to set up Pratham was initiated by the UNICEF and the then Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai. The actual work of building Pratham was undertaken by Dr. Madhav Chavan as the first Executive Secretary and Ms. Farida Lambay with late Mr. S.P. Godrej as the first Chairperson. Subsequently, Mr. N Vaghul, then Chairman CEO of ICICI joined the PMEI Board of Trustees and became its Chairperson. In order to help in achieving universalization of elementary education, Pratham works closely with governments as well as communities to strengthen educational opportunities available to children from economically disadvantaged communities. Pratham programs cover pre-school age children, out of school children and for school-going children who are lagging behind. 1.1 Scale of operations The Pratham network operates in 13 states of India (Refer Annexure 1). Its projects are run in 29 cities in these states. In addition, work is now spread in 33 districts of Maharashtra, 13 districts of Gujarat, 6 districts of Madhya Pradesh, and two districts of Uttar Pradesh. In peak operating periods during the school year, there are close to 200,000 children in Pratham programs daily. In addition about 400,000 children benefit from Pratham libraries in the urban slums. Today, Pratham is a network of different autonomous trusts and foundations. •

Pratham Delhi Education Initiative

•

Pratham Rajasthan

•

Pratham Gujarat

•

Pratham Pune Education Foundation

•

Pratham Tamil Nadu

•

Akshara Foundation

•

Pratham Books

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•

Pratham Mysore

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Pratham India Education Initiative

In addition, there is an overseas network of Pratham chapters: •

Pratham USA

•

Pratham UK

•

Pratham Germany

Chapters have been inaugurated in Dubai and Canada as well. The different trusts and foundations in India come together in the Governing Council to plan, review, and exchange ideas. Pratham works with the assistance of local governments, leading corporate houses and the local citizens. Many local and governing bodies have been formed to oversee the smooth operations of Pratham activities. Friends of Pratham have started Pratham chapters in the USA, UK and the Middle East to promote and support the Pratham cause in India. Since inception the goal of the Pratham team has been to ensure that "every child is in school ….. and is learning well". Over this 9 year period Pratham has reached out to a million children. An accelerated learning method, in which an unlettered child starts reading and computing basic mathematics in 3 weeks, has been in use since late 2002. In 2000, The Global Development Network Award, sponsored by the World Bank / Government of Japan was awarded to Pratham. Pratham was named as one of the top three

“most

innovative

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development

projects".

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1.2 About the Organisation Name of the organisation: Pratham Gujarat Education Initiative Type of Organisation: Public Charitable Trust (Registered under Public Trust Act in Mumbai in 1995,Registration Number 15454/1994-Mumbai). Address

of

Head 4, Bhoomi Duplex,

office

Near Mahavir Appartment

,

Motinagar ,

Mahalaxmi

Crossroads, Paldi , Ahmedabad. Telephone Number Email

(079)26642724,26642355,9824301610 [email protected]

Website details

www.pratham.guj.org

2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE a) Objectives •

To identify the context, structure, and behavior of the organisation

•

To study the various programme being run and the strategies being adopted.

•

To Examining the strengths and weakness of the organisation.

•

To study the the forces operating in the environment and how the organisation interact with them

b) Scope The study is limited to the Pratham Gujarat Education Initiative ,head office at Ahmedabad.

3. METHODOLOGY

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Data were collected by discussions with the officials at various levels of the organisation including the Programme Manager. Detailed discussion with the field workers like the balshakhis, balshakas and the supervisors also provided us with the valuable insights. Pratham Ahmedabad library also proved to be very useful for us during our study. We also carried out several unstructured interviews with the employees at various levels in the organisation. After the collection of the data was complete, they are organised and analyzed by using different frameworks. Inferences about the overall competencies, strengths and weakness pertaining to the internal working and opportunities and threats imposed by the external environment were drawn on the basis of the analyzed data. Tools used for the study includes •

Focus group discussions (Refer Annexure 3 )

•

Semi-structured interviews

Sources of Data a) Primary Sources: Data and information was collected through interviews and Focused Group Discussions with the Employees, Observation at the head office of the working styles, culture etc of the organisation. b) Secondary Sources •

Pratham Website

•

Book by Mr. Madhav Chavan (Building Societal Missions for Universal Pre-school and Primary Education. Paris)

•

Organisational documents available at Pratham’s Ahmedabad office.

Limitations of the study includes the following4

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a) The findings of the study cannot be generalised to all the Pratham units working across the country as Pratham in each state works as separate unit independent of each other. b) Time Constraint: The study is based on the information gathered from the head office at Ahmedabad and the branch office at Surat. Visit to other local branches was not possible due to lack of time. c) Limited access to financial data: Limited access to financial data was a major constraint in the financial analysis. 4. MISSION AND VISION Pratham Gujarat works with the following Mission and Vision: •

Mission

“Every child is in school ………and learning well” •

Vision

“To build a societal mission to universalize the primary education by 2010” (Source: PGEI documents)

5. HISTORY OF PRATHAM GUJARAT Pratham Gujarat was born simultaneously in Baroda and Ahmedabad when Lekha Bhat , an ex KG teacher and Gaurikumar , an IAS officer respectively took the responsibility of starting the organization. In 1999,Sudhir Mankad, a bureaucrat a great supporter and believer of the ideology of Pratham took 25 District Education Officers ( DEO’s ) from Gujarat to Pratham Bombay to expose them to Pratham policies and programmes. Gaurikumar, with the help of BSC director Prasad Chako, Suresh Ramanuj and Prof. Mohanty , they conceptualised ‘Aastha’ the predecessor of Pratham Gujarat.

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In Ahmedabad , the organization was running with 60 balsakhis and 3 supervisors, but it was not following the ideology of Pratham as their was no scaling up and no particular pedagogy or curriculum to follow. After sometimes, Reena was appointed as collaborator and Mira quitted. Then came the Gujarat Earthquake (Jan 26th,2001) and the schools were closed down for 20 days. It was decided to work with communities so that the children are not deprived of formal means of education. Then Pratham decided to work in 150 units in communities for the first time, and work in major earthquake hit areas.By then Pratham Mumbai directly took over the programs in Ahmedabad and Pratham Aastha became Pratham. Then the programs started expanding to areas like Ranip and Sarkhej and approximately 600 balwadis were started. Then a large scale program was evolved enrolling 10000 kids into school. As such the program became significant in terms of size with work being done in 600 units. Then a meeting was called by Sudhir Mankad , wherein all the trustees were invited to form a trust with the organization. In Baroda a meeting was organized by Mushira Shamsi , a teacher trainer from Pratham Mumbai ,which involved Madhav,Lekha , a Balsakhi, and the Professors of Home Science faculty. The meeting was held to transfer the mission and ideology to the potential someone who could champion the cause of Baroda. Out of the entire group Lekha came forward and took up the challenge. In Baroda she surveyed 70 municipal schools and concluded that Baroda needs a school readiness program. Then she held meetings with the school staff to discuss the problems pertaining to handling of slum kids. Then the programs were started in Kishanwadi area , the biggest slum pocket of Baroda. Then Lekha along with Shekhar took the help of IAPE (Indian Association of Preschool Education) to train community women for teaching slum kids. They faced quite a lot of difficulty as the teachers which were trained

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by them did not turn up. Then the decided to divide the training in two parts and to simplify it. Finally, they were able to train 20 girls. Then Sudhir Mankad came forward and organized a meeting with government officials and garnered a positive support from from the government and the permission to enter the Shikshan Samiti , DIET campus and GCERT . By the end of 1999, Baroda had as many as 60 Balsakhis. Then a high profile meeting was held with Madhav , Pratham gang , Collector and big shot industrialists and a trust of various citizens and corporates was formed. 5.1 Timeline of the Organisation 5.1.1 Chronology Gujarat •

1999- Pratham Baroda

•

1999- Astha Ahmedabad

•

2000- Pratham Ahmedabad

•

2001-Pratham Kutch

•

April 2002-Pratham Surat

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2002 End-Pratham Rajkot

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November 2002: Aditya Natraj (Director, Gujarat) joins the organization

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July 2003- Palanpur

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August 2003-North Gujarat mainly in Dahod, Himatnagar, Patan, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar.

•

October 2003-Anand

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November 2003-Surendranagar.

•

November 2003 – All Gujarat Bharuch meeting

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March 2004 – All Gujarat Sahila Meeting

5.1.2 Chronology Ahmedabad •

1999: Creation of the office in Ahmedabad. The strength of the organization is: 60 balsakis, 3 supervisors and Miraben.

•

Child Development Centre is set up by Miraben

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2000: Rina D’Souza is appointed as a collaborator. Within a month, Rina closes the Child Development Center

•

26th January 2001: Earthquake. Schools are closed for six month after earthquake, that’s the reason why Pratham gets the idea to set up balwadis directly in the communities.

•

Pratham is expanding its activities to rural Ahmedabad. More people are needed. Harini Rawal joins the organization in July 2001.

•

Mira leaves, and Pratham-Aastha is finally renamed Pratham only.

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27th of February 2002: the riots: before, the Muslim community was equally represented in Pratham’s programs. After the riots, and until 2004, no proper program is started for them, because of the fear of Hindu balsakis to go to the Muslim communities.

•

September 2002 the lagan technique was developed

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November 2002: Aditya joins the organization.

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December 2002 the reading technique was developed and experimented

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•

14th April 2003 – May: Read Ahmedabad campaign. Job role GTRG (Gujarat Training and Resource group) is created.

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April 2003 - Bala came and began to work on setting up systems for accounts and budgeting.

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May-June 2003 the GSET (Gujarat state executive team) was established to provide for regular meetings and exchange of information between the program leaders across the state

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20th June 2003 Started Working on Child Labour Project

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August 2003 First experiment conducted for catalytic program

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November 14, 2003 Launch of children Newsleteer (Dhamachakdi Express)the newsletter finally came out

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November 2003 Nearly 270 Libraries rolled across Gujarat

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December 2003 Catalyzing program began in full swing in locations such as Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surendranagar

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1st January 2004: Ahmedabad office took a call not to work with the government anymore.

(Refer Annxure 2 for the chronology of events of PGEIs operations at other places)

6. ORGANISATION STRUCTURE 6.1 Governing Body The governing body of Pratham Mumbai consists of a board of trustee and an executive committee. Under the chairmanship of Mr. N.Vaghul, chairman of ICICI Bank, the board trustee comprise of:

Mr. N. Vaghul -

Chairman, ICICI Bank

Mr. Mukesh Ambani

-

Chairman, Reliance Industries.

Mr. Ajay Piramal

-

Chairman, Nicholas Piramal Group

Mr. Kumar M. Birla

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Chairman, Aditya Birla Group

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Mr. Vijay Goradia

-

Chairman, Vinmar International

Mr. Rajat Gupta

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MD worldwide, Mckinsey & Co.

Mr. K.V. Kamath

-

MD & CEO, ICICI Bank

Mr. Gautam Thapar

-

Vice Chairman & MD, BILT

Mr. Keshub Mahindra

-

Chairman, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Mr. L.N. Mittal

-

Chairman, ISPAT International

The governing body of Pratham Ahmedabad trust is under the chairmanship of Dr.BR Sitaram. The full body of the trust is as follows: Shri Rajabhai Pathak

-

Dr. B. R. Sitaram

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Ex. Director, Swastika School Ex. Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Research Centre

Shri Sridhar Rajagopalan -

Ex. Director, Eklavya Education Foundation

Shri Sanjay Joshi

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Vice President School net India

Smt Mandaben Rishi

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Ex. Director, Mahila Samakhya

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Chart 1: Structure of Pratham India PMEI Board of Trustees

Director Programs (Resource Center/ Programs)

Executive Secretary (Admin)

Reports

Accounts

Pratham Trusts/PIEI/PUSA

General Admin

Resource Center

Managing Council: Representatives of Pratham Trusts/PIEI

Support

State Programs

Know how and Training

Local groups

Chart 2: Administrative Structure

Board of trustee (Head office, Mumbai)

Gujarat executive committee

Kutch

Ahmedabad

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Baroda Ruchi(25042)&Subodh(25045) Rajkot Surat

6.2 National Executive Team The national executive team works very closely with PGEI in building the programme related activities like curriculum development, performance assessment, and evaluation, training and building capacity in support activities like fund raising, accounting policy, and compliance etc. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of PGEI,Mr.Aditya Nataraj represents it in the national executive team. National executive team comprises of professionals from the corporate world, the social sector and the academia. Mr. Aditya Nataraj, C.A, M.B.A, (INSEAD) – Director, Program Manager, Gujarat. (5 years experience in India, France, and UK. With Pratham since January 2002). Email: [email protected] Mr. Ashok Gaitonde, ACA – Chief Financial Officer. (Over 30 years experience with national

and

multinational

banks

in

India

and

abroad).

Email:

[email protected] Mr. Chetan Kapoor, MBA – Member. (Experience in Communication and IT, corporate communications). Email: [email protected] Ms. Farida Lambay, M.S.W, M. Phil – Director, Child at Risk Program, Resource Center and Program Director, Gujarat & Mumbai. (Over 25 years experience as an Educationist and Social Worker) Email: [email protected] Dr. Madhav Chavan, PhD (Chemistry), USA. – Director, Resource Center. (Cofounder of Pratham Mumbai and Research and Teaching experience in India and USA). Email: [email protected] Dr. Rukmini Banerji, PhD, University of Chicago, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford – Director, Research and Assessment, Resource Center and Program Director, North India. (International research experience in UK and USA. 7 years of experience in building Pratham). Email: [email protected]

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Mr. M. Rajan, B.Sc, Retd. UNICEF– Convener, Exchange Forum and Governing Council. (34 years of experience with UNICEF globally in planning for development of children). Email: [email protected] Mr. Sabyasachi Das, PGDBM, IIMA – Director, Fund Mobilization and External Relations. (6 years marketing and research experience in India and USA). Email: [email protected] Mr. Ujwal Thakar, MSC, CAIIB – Chief Executive Officer. (28 years as a Sr. Banker in domestic and international banks in India and abroad). Email: [email protected] Ms. Usha Rane, M.A. – Director, Curriculum, Resource Center and Program Director, Maharashtra. (20 years of experience in the social sector. 7 years of experience of building Pratham). Email: [email protected] (Source: PGEI Ahmedabad) Chart 3: Operating Structure

Programme manager

Programme leader

Programme leader

Programme leader

Programme officer

Programme officer

Supervisor

Supervisor

Programme officer

Supervisor

13

Programme leader

Programme officer

Supervisor

Balsakhi Ruchi(25042)&Subodh(25045)

Balsakhi

Balsakhi

Balsakhi

6.3 Dimensions of Structure Complexity: Complexity refers to the degree of differentiation (horizontal, vertical and spatial) that exists in an organization. a) Horizontal differentiation: It is the degree of differentiation between units based on the orientation of members, the nature of task they perform and their education and training. Pratham Gujarat has people from diverse background at every level. Pratham do not follow any department or divisional form of structure. However, at the functional level Pratham Gujarat can be divided into two groups - Programme and Programme Support. Programmes consist of groups of people who carry out the programmes at different locations throughout Gujarat. They mainly consist of the Balshakis and supervisors. Programme support group provides support to the programme group in the implementation of the various programmes. It consists of the POs and the PLs. Programme support can mainly be divided into five parts a) People Development b) Performance Monitoring c) Marketing and Fund raising d) Systems/IT/Accounts/Finance e) Support Project Trainees. Except for finance, no other section has personnel with specialized knowledge of that particular area in which his is involved and so there are regular transfers from one section to another and also from one programme to another. Therefore, it can be said that Pratham Gujarat is low on specialization and very less division of labour exists in the organisation.

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Chart 4: Organisation structure of Pratham Gujarat Education Initiative(PGEI)

Pratham Gujarat Education Initiative Programme Support Group

Programmes

South Gujarat

People’s Development

Central Gujarat

Performance monitoring

Kutch

Saurashtra

Marketing/ fund raising

North Gujarat

Systems/IT/ Accounts/Finance

Support Project Trainees

b) Vertical differentiation: Vertical differentiation refers to the depth in the structure. It is the number of hierarchical levels that exists in an organization. Pratham Gujarat do not believe in the hierarchical form of structure and so there is no formal hierarchy. However, an informal form of hierarchy can easily be identified on a closer look at the functioning of the organization. At the top most level is the Programme manager (PM) who is the head of the organization at the state level. Next to him are the various programme leaders (PL) who handles the different programme run by Pratham. Next in line are the various programme officers (PO) who handles the any particular programmes running in a particular area. Under the programme officers are the various supervisors who makes daily visit to the classes and contact centers. These supervisors not only monitor the 15

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balshakis/balshaksas but also provide books and other necessary materials to the contact centers and the classes. Therefore, it can be said that the supervisors act as a link between the balshakis and the POs. At the lowest level is the balshaki and the balshaka. These balshakis and balshakas are not only responsible to carry out the classes but they are also responsible to bring the children to the classes as well. The above mentioned hierarchy is not very clear and there are no clearly defined roles for each level in the hierarchy. Therefore, it is very common to find the same task being performed by the programme officers at one place and the supervisors at the other. As there are only four levels of hierarchy that exists in the organisation. Therefore it can be said that Pratham Gujarat is moderate on vertical differentiation. The total number of POs and PLs working in Pratham Gujarat is 80 and the total number of supervisors is 316. There are around 10 -12 balshakis under one supervisor and 7-8 supervisors under one programme officer. Therefore span of control in Pratham Gujarat can be called high. c) Spatial differentiation: Spatial differentiation refers to the degree to which the location of the organization’s offices, plants and personals are dispersed geographically .Pratham Gujarat works in 14 different districts of Gujarat and so it has offices located at fourteen different locations all over Gujarat. The programmes that runs through these locations also differ from place to place depending upon the needs of that place. Therefore, Pratham Gujarat is highly spatially differentiated. Formalization: It refers to the degree to which the jobs within an organization are standardized. At Pratham Gujarat the degree of formalization is very less at the top level in the organizational hierarchy. There are no clearly defined roles for either the programme managers or the programme leaders. There are no written rules and procedures that the employees at this level are supposed to follow. They have full freedom and opportunity to take decisions and work as per their own discretion. Even no

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attendance register has been kept at the organization’s head office and there is no fixed time at which the employees need to report to the office. However, there are certain norms which have evolved over the period which are generally followed by all the employees of the organization. At the lower levels, the degree of formalization is high. It is quite clear what role a balshaki or balshaka need to play. Similarly, the role of a supervisor is also more or less fixed. These levels of employees have less freedom to exercise their discretion. The balshakis/balshakas get fixed syllabus which they need to cover within a specified period of time. The employees at this level are also given training at regular interval to car ry out their respective tasks more efficiently. Therefore, it can be said that as one moves from the lower level to the higher level in the hierarchy the degree of formalization decreases. Table 1: Summary of the formalization Variables Process of Selections Role Requirement Rules, Procedures Policies

Higher

in

the Lower

Hierarchy Well defined Not clearly defined and No defined rules. to

be

levels

in

the

hierarchy Well defined Nearly clearly defined No defined rules.

No well defined procedures Well need

Training

Levels

defined

procedures

followed. need to be followed.

Policies are not very clear.

Clear policies exist.

Not very regular

Regular

training

balshakis/balshaks

of

the and

supervisors are held.

Centralisation: Centralization refers to the degree to which the decision making is concentrated at a single point in an organization. A high concentration implies high centralization and a low concentration refers to low centralization or what may also be called decentralization. Pratham Gujarat is a highly decentralized organization. Decisions are taken with the active involvement of most of the stakeholders. For example, when a 17

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decision regarding the pay revision of all the PLs and POs has to be taken, it is taken by a group of programme officers. The transaction cost of the whole process is sometimes very high as on some issues it takes a lot of time to reach to a consensus.Further, the PLs and the POs are given a lot of space to exercise their discretion. 6.4 Organisation Configuration Mintzberg’s work on five basic elements of any organization is helpful in identifying standard organizational forms or configurations. He argues that there are five basic parts to any organization. Here is the effort to understand PGEI using Mintsberg’s Structure in five. a) The strategic apex: It consists of top-level managers who are entrusted with the overall responsibility of the organization. In Pratham, National Executive Team (NET) and Programme Manager constitute strategic apex. The members of NET, Programme Manager are the full time employee of the organization and are involved in taking decisions and communicating to the operating core. b) The operating core: The employees that are directly involved in running classes and contact centers i.e. Balsakhis and the supervisors who supervise these classes directly would come under the operating core. c) The middle line: Managers

who connect the operating core to the strategic apex. In

Pratham, the middle line consists of Programme Leaders and Programme Officers. The Programme Leaders are responsible for the strategic issues entailed in programme all over Gujarat while Programme Officers ensure the smooth functioning of the programmes by monitoring the operations at the lower levels.

d) The technostructure: It consists of analysts who have the responsibility for affecting certain forms of standardization in the organization. PIC and GIS could be understood to be part of technostructure as they provide specialized services like documentation, information systems and preparation of databases, etc.

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e) Support staff: People who fill the staff units, who provide indirect, support services for the organization. Accounts and Administration, Library, mail and dispatch and transport come under this head, as the services provided by them are indirect in nature.

7. ORGANIZATION CULTURE Organization culture is the basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by the members of an organization. It refers to a system of shared meanings. In every organization there is a pattern of beliefs, symbols rituals myth and practices that evolves over time. This in turn ,erect common understanding among members as to what the organization is and how its members should behave. Pratham Gujarat is no exception to it, and here also there are several beliefs, rituals myths and practices which has evolved over time. 7.1 Dimensions of culture a) Individual initiative: In Pratham Gujarat the degree of responsibility, freedom and independence that individuals have is very high. Individual initiative is always praised and encouraged. This is also a very important reason why the in spite of getting a low salary in comparison to other such organizations the employees at the higher levels are quite satisfied with their job. However, as far as the curriculum and course structure is concerned it is more or less fixed and the employees at the lower levels do not have any freedom to make changes in it. Therefore it can be said that at the level of POs and PLs individual initiatives are highly encouraged and praised. b) Risk Tolerance: Pratham Gujarat encourages its employees to be innovative and risk taking. As mentioned earlier, the individual initiative is highly praised in this organization. In case of failure of any of the initiative by any employee it is considered as the failure of all and not of any particular individual. Pratham does not believe in penalizing the employees.

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c) Direction: Direction refers to the degree to which the organization creates clear objectives and performance expectations. As an organization, Pratham Gujarat is very clear in its objectives. All the employees know the reason for the existence of the organization and its various goals and objectives. As far as the performance expectation is concerned. Pratham Gujarat follows the system of target fixation. Before the implementation of any programme various long targets are fixed which are again broken down into short term targets. At the individual level also targets are fixed. But this is usually done by the person himself and targets are not imposed on them by the superiors. d) Integration: It refers to the degree to which units within an organization are encouraged to operate in a coordinated manner. Pratham Gujarat works in 14 districts of Gujarat and so it has offices located at fourteen different locations all over Gujarat. These units are not independent of each other and they work in close co-ordination with each other. Any programme implemented at one place can easily be replicated by other. For this, sometimes transfer of employees are also done who are efficient in handling a particular programme. Reports from all these units are regularly sent to the head office in Ahmedabad. e) Management Support: It is the degree to which managers provide clear communication, assistance and support to their subordinate.

As mentioned earlier

Pratham, do not believe in any hierarchical form of structure and so the employees at Pratham address their superiors by their names. Even there are no separate cabins either for programme manager or programme leaders. Any employee can at any time meet the programme manager or the programme leaders. Any decision in the organization is taken in a participatory manner. Therefore it can be said that the degree to which managers provide clear communication, assistance and support to their subordinates is high in Pratham Gujarat.

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f) Control: Control can be defined as number of rules and regulations and the amount of direct supervision that are used to oversee and control employee behaviour. Pratham Gujarat has very less written rules and regulations. At the lower level, the balsakhis/balshakas are in direct supervision. These supervisors make daily visit to the classes and the contact centers to ensure its regular functioning. They also submit monthly report of these classes to the local office which is further sends the compiled report to the head office. Control at the higher levels is quite low. Work at this level is highly nonroutine in nature however; there are monthly meetings of the POs and the supervisors to assess the performance. g) Identity: The degree to which the members identify themselves with the organization as a whole rather than with a particular work group or field of professional expertise is high in Pratham. Be it the PLs at the top level or the balsakhis at the lower levels, all feel great sense of pride to associate themselves with Pratham. Employees at all levels are very well aware of the misson statement. h) Reward system: It is defined as the degree to which the rewards allocations (i.e. salary increase promotions etc.) are based on employee performance criteria in contrast to seniority, favoritism and so on. There is no fixed pattern of the reward system. At the lower most level i.e. the balshakis and the balshaks get a fixed sum of Rs five hundred per month. For the other level of employees the decision regarding the pay revision or increments is done by the PLs and the POs themselves. The pattern which is being followed at present is through a voting where the members themselves decides who should be given an increment. i) Conflict Tolerance: In Pratham , conflicts are considered to be functional as they initiate the search for new and better ways of doing things. As here, the decision making process is by and large participative which permits greater opportunity for the expression of existing disputes and allows more occasions for disagreements to arise. Participative approach makes the latent differences overt.

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j) Communication Pattern: Communication does not follow any particular pattern. However it can be said that the Programme Officers acts as communication link between Programme leader and supervisors and in the same way supervisors act as communication link between Programme Officers and Balsakhis/Balshakas. 7.2 How the culture is kept alive? The selection process attempts to ensure a proper match which results in hiring of personnel whose values match with those of Pratham’s. Generally, the young personnel are selected showing great zeal towards the mission of the organization and who are ready to take initiatives. The top management is being constantly observed by the employees and their practices are followed by their subordinates. Here, the officers at all levels try to inculcate the team culture among their subordinates ,the same practice is , in turn followed by these subordinates for the personnel which come under their span of control. The newly selected personnel are oriented with the culture of the organization through the appropriate induction programme. The new employees soon get acclimatized with the norms and practices of Pratham. 8. PROGRAMMES 8.1 Direct The programme encompasses the interventions in the following forms – •

Running service delivery units as required in the existing communities.

•

Creating political pressure group through children from the community that takes up the issue of improvement of government schools while also ensuring the

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enhancement of democratic participation at micro level in decisions in the school boards. •

Identifying motivated teachers, principals and administrative officers who are excited to take up “Every child reading” agenda so that not a single child is left without reading, writing and math skills in school.

Direct Programme consist of the following – 1. Balwadi (pre-school centers) are run for the children for age 4-6 years. The classes prepare the child for school. It is run in those areas where the government’s Aanganwadis are not running. 2. Learning to Read classes (L2R): are classes to teach children to read. This has been a roughly 8 week activity, which may be extended by adding a 2 week preparatory period at the beginning of each cycle. The classes are meant for both for in-school and out-ofschool children. Separate classes may be held for the two categories or children or a class may have both categories of children. Choice is made locally. 3. Reading to Learn classes (R2L): This is an extension of the Learning to Read class. The out-of-school children are to be enrolled in these classes as a priority. Attempts are to be made to make the classes for in-school children financially self sufficient through revenue generation by the local groups. The Reading to Learn classes may have two phases. •

The first phase, R2L1, strengthens reading, comprehension of school and/or other texts, and writing on one’s own.

•

The second phase R2L2, attempts to ensure that the children complete the basic curricular framework for std III as prescribed by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT).

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4. Library: The library models vary from region to region. However, the idea is to ensure that all children in the project communities have access to good books even before the L2R and R2L activities begin. The library provides the follow up to L2R classes and also conducts other activities for children although optimization of the library work, if not standardization, is needed. All children of the project slum/ village pocket are expected to use the books. The Library Register keeps a record of each child including her/his level of reading at the beginning of the project and the books borrowed by each child. It is the source of data to track reading habits of the children. 5. Mainstreaming: The out-of-school children in the age group of 6-7 are enrolled in nearby schools provided there is no problem of space and if teachers are available in sufficient numbers. The children 8-12 who complete the L2R and R2L classes are to be mainstreamed into schools as and when possible but generally at the beginning of the next academic year.

6. Bal Panchayat: Bal Panchayat is the recent initiative taken by Pratham Ahmedabad. About 122 Bal Panchayats have been formed in Ahmedabad slums. Nearly, 22 of them are 3 months old and the others are nearly a month old. The supervisors train facilitators for the formation of bal panchayat through role plays. Nearly, 50 to 60 children, aged between 6 -14, are gathered in a slum area and election is held for the post of ministers among them. A minimum of 12 children should be present for carrying out elections. Consequently, a body of ministers is elected, which includes – Sarpanch,Up-sarpanch , Aarogya mantri, Safaai mantri and 5 others who look after their own areas of operation. The whole process is democratic and children are encouraged to come forward and stand for elections. Then, a meeting of all the ministers is held once a week to discuss various issues and problems pertaining to their slum areas. Pratham is trying to mobilize the children through Bal Panchayats, to carry out surveys of their own slum areas in order to find out the children who are illiterate or school dropouts. Moreover, these children are also being encouraged to persuade the parents who are reluctant to send their children to

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school.Moreover, the facilitators of Bal Panchayat are training the children to run a library on their own. Besides, some of the Bal Panchayats have successfully raised some funds from the slum residents to buy more books for library. Bal Panchayat helps in the empowerment of children. Empowerment means giving authority to do something. The strategy adopted by Pratham in Bal Panchayat is that of appreciative enquiry. Here, children themselves identify their needs and work on them. The facilitators only ensure that the whole process runs smoothly. 8.2 Rural Community Action (RCA) Pratham Gujarat operates in rural areas through Rural Action Community Programme .This programme comprises the involvement of village community in the process of identifying the needs of elementary education of the village children and developing suitable strategies for improving the delivery of educational system and work with the government for amending educational policies. The mission of RCA is to form federations at village, taluka and district levels through the involvement of citizens for solving problems related to education, to elicit the community participation to achieve the goal of Universal Elementary Education. Under this programme, Pratham undertakes the following steps•

Selecting villages based on some parameters.

•

Building rural teams.

•

Understanding rural communities and helping them to identify the problems related to the education in their villages.

•

Helping community to define its goal and refine to it’s specific objectives.

•

Helping community to identify its resources and take steps to activate its Village Education Committee(VEC).

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Village Education Committees In most areas village Education Committee’s (VEC’S) are not functional. There is a larger governance issue regarding VEC’s in that they could be a part of the Panchayat itself rather than a separate body. One of the main long-term objectives of Pratham intervention in rural areas is to take ownership of schools to ensure sustainability. In order to do this, as Pratham has tried elsewhere in rural Maharashtra and Andhra, attempts are made to empower the local balsakhi or bridge course teacher enough to be able to become a member of the VEC so that she can then activate the committee and motivate it. This strategy has worked in about half of the rural locations elsewhere. 8.2 National Open School This is a parallel education system linked with the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) formerly known as National Open School (NOS) which enables an NGO to have children not attending school to sit for its end of year exams. Pratham Bombay has been accredited to act as an authorized center to conduct exams, and through their accreditation, Surat has been running the NOS program since 2003. The NOS program has three parts to it: 

Higher Secondary certification



Secondary certification



Open basic education

The first two parts have their own state wise set curriculum. The third part is completely open and if an organization has accreditation they can build and form their own curriculum to prepare the children for the exams and conduct the examinations as well. This is the part with which Pratham Surat works, and they work to have children sit in the third, fifth, and eight standard exams.

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8.3 Education Management System (EMS) Education Management system mainly involves understanding and documenting the functions and processes of the educational administration system with a view to identifying the most critical gaps in managerial capacity, structures, systems and processes and codifying

the role of

“citizen volunteers” who wish to assist the

educational administrator. Main Components of the Study •

Document the time utilization of education administrators

•

Document the MIS

•

Document key processes within Government

8.4 Education Management Institute Pratham has also undertaken to develop for conceptual design for an Educational Management Institute over the next one year. Specific outputs will be: 

Clear statement of the main problems in management of large governmental educational systems, including data from interviews and texts in support



Statement of the type of intervention required to cause an improvement in educational management, including estimated costs, skills and approximate time line



Contacts with key personnel in India and abroad including resource persons, funders, collaboration partners and advisory board who could help in establishment of the institution.

8.5 Outreach Pratham’s outreach programme is mainly concerned with providing educational opportunities to child laborers, street children, pavement dwellers and children in conflict

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with law. Teaching and learning happens in places of work, on streets, pavements, railway platforms - wherever children want to learn. The programme consists of – 1. Contact centres: instructor meets children at or near the children's work place individually, or in small groups to teach for about 30 minutes 2. Study classes and hobby classes: Under the study classes, the working children are taught at their work place in groups for 1-2 hours and under hobby classes, Group meets to draw, do handicraft, play- over 3-5 hours .Starting with a 'contact class' where a Pratham person develops a casual contact with children, the program moves to hobby classes where children meet regularly. Many members of the hobby class then move to more serious 'study class'. 3. Residential Bridge Course (RBC): Pratham Surat Education Initiative took the plunge to start a Residential Bridge Course Centre (RBC) in village Suali of Choryasi Tehesil in Surat district, on the 5th of January 2005.The Pratham RBC is a 7-month programme and has 30 child labourers in the first batch. With an annual cost of about Rs. 3,50,000 the project has been mainly funded by NOVIB (Oxfam Netherlands). Some local entrepreneurs have pledged assistance in the form of grocery for the inmates. For the selection of these 30 children, aged 9-14, preference has been given to orphans and children of single parents. They have all been medically examined for communicable diseases. A rented 6-roomed house functions both as hostel and school for the children and they are taught by 3 teachers, looked after by a caretaker and served meals by a cook.

During the 7-month stay the children acquire relevant competencies of class 5. Cocurricular activities such as Excursion trips, Aakash Darshan, Yogabhyas, Dramatics, Handicraft, Music and Film Shows enliven the children's stay at RBC centre. Besides this, they are also provided with uniform and clothing. Upon completion of the 7-month tenure they are examined and the successful children are bridged to class 6 in a formal 28

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school. Subsequently, all necessary support to the families of these children will be rendered, to ensure that the children remain in school. Pratham is confident it will be able to bridge the entire lot of 30 in the first batch. They propose to cover 500 child labourers in the next stage. Consequently, they also hope to demonstrate that this intervention can be replicated on a large scale to wean away the children from the rigors of labour and equip them to lead a meaningful life. The approach mainly consists of •

Reaching out to children through our community volunteers and build relationship with him.

•

Creating models in urban areas by which working children (with and without families) are moved away from work and mainstreamed into schools or education net.

•

Building alliances at many levels grassroots, NGOs, multilaterals, ILO, corporate, government etc. and leveraging substantial additional resources

9. ACHIEVEMENTS OF DIFFERENT PROGRAMMES The achievements made by different programmes can be assessed by the number of children that has been reached. Under its Direct Programme, 1100 classes are running in the state of Gujarat, which are imparting basic education to around 22000 children. Besides, around 14000 children have been brought under its new initiative, Bal Panchayat. Moreover, around 50000 children are being benefited by its library programme. Its Rural Community Action Programme has successfully surveyed 326000 children. Within next 3 months; it is planning to commence 2000 classes in different villages of Gujarat, reaching to around 40000 children.

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Under, National Open School Programme, for which Pratham Surat got the accreditation 150 students appeared on the date of the examination. Outreach Programme has successfully conducted reading classes for 1800 out of the school children, who are engaged in various occupations. 10. ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY The strategy followed by Pratham Gujarat can be studied at two levels – Programmatic level and Organisation level. 10.1 Programmatic level Programmatic level strategy consists mainly of the following three approaches 10.1.1 Direct implementation, demonstration: Direct implementation approach works at two levels. In the first level the main slum communities of the city are identified and a baseline map of the area is drawn. During this process it is also tried to identify the needs of the area. Once this is done effort is made to recruit volunteers. The volunteers are selected from the same area where the classes need be held. Efforts are also made to arrange funds from small local donors. The second level of direct implementation involves identifying children at risk, i.e. those children who are working in small shops or working individually or are rag pickers. It also involves identifying street children, such as children on railway platform and market. The delivery mechanism for these children is a bit different from that mentioned above. Besides education, here it is also tried to stay in touch with these children and give protective cover to them. Four elements of Pratham’s strategy which makes it unique and special a) Comprehensive geographical outlook : Pratham adopts a total geographical approach at all levels of operation, be it a city, a rural block or a taluka ,which couples close links

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and cooperation with the government that distinguishes it from other non-governmental organizations. b) All encompassing: At Pratham all efforts are made to ensure active participation of all the stakeholders for making any intervention successful. Its programmes have always tried to draw new people in its existing network. c) Replicable and Scaleable: Any programme in Pratham is made keeping in view that it should be replicable and scaleable. Pratham never believes in implementation on a small scale. It has huge networks and a large human capital base which makes it easy to follow the above two strategies. d) Utilizing untapped local resources: Pratham utilizes the untapped local human resources i.e. HSC pass students, mostly girls, and train them as Balsakhis/Balsakhas and supervisors. 10.1.2 Catalyzing change on massive scale: Pratham tries to help the government by strengthening the formal system of education. It helped 10,000 government teachers in 1500 villages to adopt a vow that their classes have “all children reading”. For this Pratham has started a Teachers Training (TT) programme in Ahmedabad, Anand, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Junagarh, Surendranagar, Gondal, and Palanpur. 10.1.3 Advocacy, policy change Pratham believes that there is a need to engage in policy debates, especially when government is asking for inputs. It also engages itself in large scale studies and research relevant to live policy debates especially on “Models of school system management” and “Status of education and schemes”. Pratham has mainly directed its efforts in three focus areas: 

Making Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan funds available for its programs.



Impacting formulation of policies and legislations as they are written.



Impacting political leadership to take up programs for improvement in quality of education and other goals.

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10.2 Organizational level Pratham believes that the primary education is the responsibility of government, and that the improvement of the first order is likely to come with the improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness in the execution of their accountability towards the community. It, therefore, strives to make the government system more effective by working with it at multiple levels and not getting into any kind of conflicts. The main aim of Pratham’s classes is to first provide the children a suitable base and bring them to the main stream of education by getting them enrolled in schools. •

Pratham works with the government and not parallel with the government as it believes that the primary education is the responsibility of government

•

The main aim of Pratham’s classes is to first provide the children a suitable base and bring them to the main stream of education by getting them enrolled in schools

•

No fixed assets creation

•

Major emphasis on cost cutting

11. STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AT PGEI

The strategy development process in any organisation depends on a number of parameters. The strategy development process at Pratham is analysed as follows: 11.1 Enforced Choice This refers to imposition of strategies by an outside influence. Here the organisation does not develop the strategy by itself rather it is developed by an external agency which has considerable influence on it. The NGOs depends on external agencies like government, donors and other agencies for funds hence the element of enforced choice in strategy development is usually high. In case of PGEI, the major funding agency is NOVIB. Pratham has a contract of 5 years with NOVIB and it does not exert any influence on the

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strategies adopted by Pratham. Hence, it may be concluded that there is low enforced choice in PGEI. 11.2 Incremental In logical incrementalism, the strategies are developed after much deliberation by ‘learning through doing’. The strategies are seen to be continually and proactively pursuing certain goals simultaneously countering competition and adapting to the changing environment. At the time of inception, Pratham was established with a definite mission and a clearly defined objective and the overall strategy were designed by sharing collective experience of the employees.The recent programmes started by Pratham Gujarat like Residential Bridge Course (RBC) and Education Management System (EMS) shows its penchant for innovation and proactiveness.

Hence, their logical

incrementalism is high in nature. 11.3 Political Factors The political view of strategy development perceives it as an outcome of the processes of bargaining and negotiation among powerful internal and external group. In case of the PGEI, the process is not highly influenced by the political factors because there are no strong interest groups fighting for resources in PGEI. As almost all the projects get separate allocations from the funding agencies, (or as the funding agencies funding is based on specific projects), the problems with regard to allocation of funds among different teams is comparatively less. 11.4 Cultural It is important to recognise the significance of organisational culture in strategy development as the organisation culture are basic assumptions and beliefs that operate unconsciously and define the organisation’s view of itself and its environment. In case of PGEI, the impact of culture on strategy development is relatively more vis-à-vis other internal and external influences. Any decision is taken keeping in view that it does go against the common pattern of beliefs, symbols, rituals, myth and practices of Pratham. Its work is more influenced by informal interactions among team members and with the

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Coordination Office. Therefore, it can be said that the influence of culture in strategy decisions are high in Pratham. 11.5 Planning Certain organisations consider strategy development as a means of analysing strategic problems and controlling by reviewing performance; and thus have an extensive planning system in place for development of strategies. They have a longer-term view of strategy. Pratham Gujarat does not have a planned approach to strategy development. Strategies are made based in the needs and priorities. Therefore, the impact of planning is moderate on strategy development. 11.6 Command Strategy development may also be associated with an individual. Majority of the times the dominant individual is the leader or the head of the organisation. In case of the Pratham Gujarat, any decision relating to strategy development is not influenced much by the decision of a single person. Most of the decisions are taken in consultation with all the members. There are long brainstorming sessions by the employees before the strategies are formulated. Therefore it can be said that the impact of command factor in strategy formulation is low. The above five factors can be mapped as below to find where an organisation is positioned as far as the strategy development process is concerned. As can be seen, the strategy development process is highly influenced by culture, logical incrementalism and is not much influenced by other factors.

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Chart 5: Factors Affecting Strategy Development at PGEI Enforced

Political

Cultural

Culture

Incremental

High

Command

Medium

Low

12. HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES There is no separate human resource department as such. The activities like recruitment, selection, training and development are carried by Programme managers, Programme leaders and Programme officers.

Besides, there is no formalized and structured

procedure for performance appraisal in Pratham Gujarat. However, last year for allocating a salary raise, a group of programme officers and programme leaders followed a mechanism “appraisal by peers”, which involved voting by every officer. But, as we 35

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interviewed various officers, we came to know that many are dissatisfied by the procedure of appraisal. During our visits to Pratham Ahmedabad, we found brainstorming was going on among various programme officers for evolving an appropriate strategy for performance appraisal. 12.1 Manpower planning The human resource need is assessed on the basis of the requirements of different programmes. As and when the need arises, the recruitment takes place. 12.2 Recruitment and selection The

common

modes

of

recruitment

are

newspaper

advertisements,

campus

etc.Programme leaders are recruited through campus placements and sometimes the programme officers are promoted to the rank of programme leaders.The recruited individuals are then selected through interviews and sometimes through written examinations. 12.3 Training and Development Training is arranged frequently in the organisation, both at the time of induction of employees at different levels and for the existing employees periodically, so as to upgrade their skills regularly. A Balsakhi is trained for 15 days during induction. An initiative for the people’s development has been taken recently. A separate wing for people’s development has been started, wherein capacity building of the potential employees is undertaken. Besides, a few potential employees are also selected and leadership skills are imparted to them through various workshops. 12.4 Compensation Compensation varies from position to position. The following table shows the salary range, along with job positions and functions.

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Table 2: Details of Compensation Salary

range

(Rs)

Function Job Positions Basti Pramukhs and trainer monitors:

2000-5000

data

management,

research team Programme Officers Program management, curriculum

10000-15000 15000-20000 20000-25000 25000-45000

Mahila

Mandal employees Supervisors Training team, accounting team,

5000-10000

mostly

team,

data Almost Programme Leaders

management, research team Program Management Program Management Senior

(APL) Programme Leaders (PL)-A Programme Leaders (PL)-B Programme Coordinator

Program

Management, fund raising, donor management, external relations,

operations

45000-55000 management 55,000+ Executive leadership Source: PGEI’s Records

Project Manager Chief Executive Officer

12.5 Transfers The transfers are done – •

Across different locations in same programme or,

•

Across different programmes in same location or a different location.

The transfers are done on the basis of human requirements of different programmes and locations. The transfer decisions are also taken by keeping the employees needs and priorities in view.

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Generally, Balshakis are the residents of the area where the classes are being run , so they are not transferred .Supervisors are transferred sometimes while Programme Officers and Programme Leaders are transferred deliberately so as to make them understand the different programmes and become proficient. 12.6 Promotions The promotions are done mainly on the merit basis. The promotions involves raise in the salary, increase in authority and job responsibilities. The employees who performing quite well, at different positions are selected and then they undergo a leadership development programme so as to make them competent for the next level. There have a few instances when, a deserving Balsakhis , who are even just 12th passed, have been promoted to the position of supervisors and thereafter to programme officers and even to higher levels. The deserving Programme Officers are first promoted to the post of an APL i.e. Assistant Programme Leader and then to the position of Programme Leaders. The promotion does not always lead to change in the hierarchy , but sometimes it results in the expansion of the areas under the direct control of the employee, as generally happens in the case of Programme Leaders, thereby making the work more challenging. 12.7 Job Description A brief job description for different job positions is as follows: 13.7.1 Programme Leader The programme leaders are responsible for the smooth functioning of their programme in a state.They are involved directly into strategy level decisions making.They assess the effectiveness of the programme in the state.

12.7.2 Programme Officer The programme officers are generally recruited through advertisements in the newspapers and sometimes through promotions.

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The PO monitors and controls the proper execution of the entire program. Those make up the core tasks and can be subdivided into 1. implementing the direct program 2. human resources Additionally he is involved into expanding the programs and developing new modules 3. new experiments (if appropriate) 4. fundraising (if appropriate) 12.7.3 Supervisor A supervisor is the organizational linkage between the Program Officer (PO) and the balsakhis. There is no formal contract about the longitude of the job but it is typically an agreement for one year employment which may or may not be continued depending on the readiness of either party. This job does not require any out station travelling but constantly requires the incumbent to commute between different locations locally depending on where the classes monitored by him/her are situated. He as a line member supervises and guarantees the proper implementation of the project of some 5 to 12 balsakhis within his/her geographical area, depending on the project. The supervisor job family position is currently graded into 3 grades A, B and C, each of them earning a salary of 2000, 1500 and 1000 respectively. Irrespectively which program the incumbent is part of or which grade (s) he fulfils, there can be discerned general responsibilities: attendance and achievement monitoring, personal mentoring of balsakhis teaching activities, regulation of attendance of children and building and maintaining strategic networks.

13. ACCOUNT SYSTEMS AND MANAGEMENT

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The accounts system was revamped in the April 2004. For the purpose of restructuring the whole system on more professional lines, the services of an NGO, Give Foundation was hired. Since the inception of the organisation in Ahmedabad accounts were maintained by a three member team and the individual accountants for each location. There was no cashbook or record keeping system for maintaining the accounts. Only the cash spent for office expenses was maintained by keeping expense vouchers which were all submitted to the Pratham Mumbai office by individual program officers or program leaders. The majority of the expenses are now transacted through bank. This minimizes the risk of handling cash. Pratham is trying to minimize the amount of cash transaction purely from a control perspective. Majority of the expense is routed centrally from the Ahmedabad office. Similarly TLM is mostly procured centrally and payment is also made centrally. The above payments are normally authorized by the State Programme Support Manager/Finance in charge. All other payments like rent, electricity, etc are made by cheque .Cash payments are normally Balsakhi payments, petty cash for office use and other miscellaneous expenses where it is difficult to make payment by cheque e.g: train/bus tickets, transportation charges, etc

Budgeting systems have been streamlined and simplified considerably for the programme personnel to understand budgets better. The new system designed has addressed the problem of budget preparation to a significant extent and Pratham believes it can improve further on this aspect. As part of the budgeting system, teaching learning material (TLM) required in all programmes were identified and coded based on the type of material and the programme they are used for.

Every location gets the fund transfer between 5th and 10th of every month for activity while for unit payment it is between 25th and 30th.Here unit payment refers to the salary payment of Balsakhi (who runs a class or a contact centre) which is made in cash. For the salary payment of Programme leaders, Programme officers and supervisors it is done through bank.

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13.1 Funding and Expenditure Pattern Novib is the major funder . Novib is a member of Oxfam International, a growing group that currently consists of eleven organisations for development co-operation . Novib and Pratham joined hands way back in mid 1999. The Pratham program has expanded considerably since the first contact with Novib. Today, Novib is committed to support Pratham in a true spirit of partnership for a period of three years. The assistance is expected to be of the order of Rs 30 million per year for work in Mumbai, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi and Bihar. In the year 2004-05, Novib contributed about 71% of the total funds. The percentage was 73% in the year 2003-04 and only 10% of the total fund was contributed by Novib in the year 2002-03. In absolute terms it is found that Novib’s contribution has increased from Rs 2122900 to Rs 21114667 in the last three years. The contribution of PUSA in the year 2002-03 has been Rs 8470417 which came dawn to Rs 2830000.In the year 2002-03 PUSA was the single largest donor contributing 41% of the total funding however, in the year 2004-05 its share in the total contribution was only 9%. There has been no contribution from PUK (Pratham UK) in the year 2002-03 and 2003-04. During 2004-05 it contributed Rs 1940800 which is 7% of the total contribution. During the year 2004-05 there was a major contribution of Rs 3050000 from PIEI (Pratham India Education Initiative) which is around 10% of the total funds. There was no funding from PIEI during the last two years. Besides, funds also come from local donors. This year Kutch programmes got funds from BILT (Ballarpur Industries Ltd.) and SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan) , Bharuch from GPEC .( Refer Annexure 4 for details). The total funding of PGEI has increased from Rs 20631400 to Rs 29541752 from 200203 to 2004 -05. However this is mainly because of the increase in the contribution from a single source i.e. Novib. Therefore it can be said that PGEI has increased its dependency on a single source.

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As far as the expenditures are concerned there has not been any major shift towards or away from any particular component. The only shift which is evident from the data of the last three years is that the expenditure on the payment of the salaries of the balshakis has decreased from 32% to 23% of the total expenditure. The expenditure on the teaching and learning materials during the last three years varies between 7 to 11%. The component on which the maximum share of expenditure is spent is the programme support. This includes the salaries to the PLs, POs and the supervisors. Therefore it can be said that at PGEI more stress is given on the programme formulation and its monitoring. The point is further strengthen by the fact that about 25% of the total spending is spent on the training and other related activities of the employees. (Refer Annexure 4 for details) Chart 6: Details about Funds

Fund details (2004 - 05) PIEI MIT 10% 2% PUK 7% PUSA 9% Novib 72%

Source:Pratham Documents

Chart 7: Distribution of funds

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Distribution of pattern of funds

Donor Level

Pratham HO

Gujarat HO

Field Locations

Chart 8: Flow of Funds

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NOVIB

PUSA

Pratham Mumbai Pratham Gujarat (Ahmedabad) Kutch

Surat

Baroda

Rajkot

Ahemdabad (field)

Jamnagar

Palanpur

Bhuj Anjar

13.2 Audit a) Internal:Every month an internal audit is done by a Chartered Accountant. It helps in monitoring and controlling the finance related issues of the organisation. b) External: At the end of every year a statutory external audit is done to meet the legal requirements. c) Donor Audit: These are periodic audits conducted by donor agencies like Novib so as to keep a check on the flow 14. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM There has been no separate MIS department in Pratham. The work of designing a proper MIS is underway and will come to existence within a year. Pratham maintains a systematic data base of all the children coming to its classes. Monthly coupon reports are made by the supervisors for each class and these reports are submitted at office. After

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Bhavnagar

compilation these reports are sent to the head office at Pratham. Internet is widely used for this purpose. All staffs of Pratham up to programme officer level have been given mobile phones falling under the ‘caller group’ category of mobile teleservices providers. This costs Pratham Rupees Six Hundred per set each month. This facilitates the flow of information from between location-offices and the head office. Very often programme leaders conduct conference on phone using this service. This has helped in putting a check and also on guiding the programme officer for proper implementation of programmes.

14.1 Internet based Services E-mail has been a fast source of making a regular contact with the programme offices. All location-offices have internet services available. Recently Pratham has decided to start using e-mail services for reporting purposes. They have developed formats on excel sheet which has to be filled up at the location office and sent back to head office through mail. 14.2 Online Databases Pratham has developed two online databases for report generation. The two online databases are: 14.2.1 Human Resources Information System A Swiss apprentice who participated in the apprentice programmes under AIESAC exchange programme developed this system. This system was developed to keep a track of human resources of the organization. The need to develop system was felt because of increase in numbers of employees and it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain data related to employees by the head office. The database can give information about the profile of each employee. Programme leaders and a few selected employees can only log on to the network and view the information. There is a master data operator who enters the data and updates it at intervals. This system can also be used for quicker performance appraisal at the head office level. However Pratham because of lack of technical expertise never used the system. It is expected to start working in short time after some modifications.(source: http://www.prathamguj.org/hris/index.php) 45

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14.2.2 Test Reporting System A German apprentice who participated in the apprentice programmes under AIESAC exchange programme developed this system. The database was developed to smoothen the reporting process for test results of direct programmes across Gujarat. The database can generate results for following levels •

State level report

•

City based report

The rights to visit the site and make entries are given to a select few managers in Pratham. However rights to read the results based on the data entered are given to many. This system can revolutionize the reporting mechanism in Pratham. Moving to this system can save time and human resources. The site is still under development stage and is expected to start functioning within a few months. The use of technology for reporting online reflects high level of transparency in its operations. (Source: http://www.prathamguj.org/hris/index.php)

15. MONITORING AND EVALUATION Monitoring and evaluation is done continuously to ensure that the various initiatives undertaken by Pratham are in alignment with the set goals and purpose. To keep a tab on the Balshakhis, the supervisors pay daily visit to all the classes running in the area under him/her. Periodic meetings of all the balshakhis with the supervisors are also held regularly. Monthly meetings of the PO’s with the supervisors are also held where the progress of the programmes are assessed on the basis of the number of children being promoted to the higher levels. The PO’s after consolidating these data from the various areas send it to the programme leaders. The salary rise and other benefits of both the PO’s and the PL’s are decided on the basis of these reports. At the national level meetings are conducted to evaluate the overall performance of the team of a state.

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16. SWOT ANALYSIS The SWOT analysis was done on the basis of the following definitions of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. After listing out exhaustively all of these were categorised into three categories such as very important, important and not so important. Strengths: successful application of a competency or exploitation of a critical factor to develop competitiveness. Weaknesses: unsuccessful application of a competency or the non-exploitation of a critical factor that diminishes competitiveness. Opportunities: external condition that could positively impact the organisation’s critical performance parameters and improve competitive advantage provided positive action is taken in time. Threats: external condition that could negatively impact the critical performance parameters and diminish competitive advantage provided positive action is not taken in time. 16.1 Strengths •

Pratham has a very good support of top notch people from the corporate world and eminent personalities.

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Strong brand image.

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Leadership of Aditya Natrajan has been very successful in giving a direction to the organisation in general and the staffs in particular.

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Another major strength identified is the organization’s ability to stick to the project cycle time and the ability to share responsibility among the staffs. Also the organization has been able to garner support from the community at large.

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Pratham has good team of professionals at the upper level. The professionals are generally passouts from IRMA, XIM-B, TISS etc. 47

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Getting fund is never a problem.

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Good linkages with research and academic institutes for capacity building.

16.2 Weaknesses •

Lack of proper HR practices in terms of recruitment, job specification, performance appraisal etc. This is major weakness as it is leading to unsatisfied employees both at middle and the lower level.

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Lack of proper flow of communication to and from the higher level to the lower levels of the employees.

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Too much freedom to the employees sometimes results in the wastage of resources in the form of time and money.

16.3 Opportunities •

So far Pratham’s works have been limited to primary education. It can also venture in adult literacy also without the investment of much extra resources as, it already has a good network in the potential areas for the same.

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Pratham’s one of the founders Shri Madhav Chavan being on the National Advisory Board of UPA government can influence the policy relating to education so as to establish a proper system of monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the teachers in the government school.

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Pratham has a very large pool of professionals which can be used in providing consultancy in the field of education to other government and non government agencies of India and abroad.( PGEI is already providing consultancy in a educational project of Afghanistan government.)

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RCA has been started to cater to the needs of the rural sector. At present it is being carried out only on a few locations. There is still plenty of scope for PGEI to work towards the education of the rural children.

16.4 Threats

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Two third of PGEI’s funds comes from a single source i.e. Novib. Excessive dependence on a one source can lead the organisation into financial crunch in case such funding is stopped.

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Any major reshuffle in the education policy by the government thereby restricting or putting conditions on informal system of education can prove to be a major challenge for the organisation.

17. SUSTAINABILITY OF THE ORGANISATION We tried to analyse the sustainability of Pratham Gujarat education initiative on the following parameters. 1. Funding: PGEI has never had any dearth of funds since its inception. As mentioned earlier Pratham Gujarat has a very strong pool of professional at the upper levels, and it also has strong links with top notch people of the corporate world. All these help PGEI to manage funds quite easily. 2. Human Resource: Although the employees at the lower levels are not very satisfied with the amount of salary which they get but even then the turnover ratio is quite low. This is probably because of the amount of freedom and identity which the employees enjoy working with Pratham. 3. Achivement of the Programmes: As mentioned earlier PGEI has been running successfully its various programmes at different locations throughout Gujarat. It has always and performed as per the expectations of the funding agencies. This is proved by the fact that all these years it has received uninterrupted flow of funds from its donors. 4. Government Policies: There has never been any major change in the government policy towards education for the last several years. Further the presence of Madhav Chawan in the advisory board on education reduces the uncertainty to a large extent. 5. Competitors: PGEI always works in collaboration with other organisations working in education at the same area. This reduces any major threat on its sustainability from its competitors.

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18. FUTURE PLANS The last two years of experience of simultaneously working in urban slums and rural districts on a large scale has confirmed the correctness of the Pratham strategy of advocacy through large scale demonstrated impact. Alliance-building is another cornerstone of the new Pratham strategy. Unlike in the past, Pratham will actively build alliances with other NGOs that want to work on scale. These alliances will be especially useful in states where Pratham either has no presence or a very small presence. Thus, Pratham’s strategy will be increasingly targeted at impacting governments and school systems. In addition to the catalytic program of working with teachers to improve the learning achievements, the thrust will also include working with the village population, parents, local youths and village panchayats. Until 2003-04, Pratham was primarily an urban program. However, since the ‘learning to read’ innovation, the number of rural children impacted has become ten times that of the overall number of children impacted annually in the urban programs. Pratham will create pilot blocks across the country, which will form the demonstration units for change and also a training ground for new volunteers among youths and schoolteachers in order to improve the status of elementary education.

19. CONCLUSIONS Pratham has been working in Gujarat for the last five years. During this period it has seen several ups and downs. Mr. Aditya natrajan took charge of Pratham Gujarat in the year 2002. Its efficiency has improved a lot since then and it has been constantly moving towards its goal of universalisation of elementary education. Aditya believes that the presence of professionals is very essential for the success of any organisation, but they should be provided adequate freedom and space to exercise their discretion. He believes that any person can perform any task, if provided with adequate resources and congenial environment. The large pool of talented and committed employees and the low turnover rate is a clear indication that the employees are quite satisfied working with Pratham. At

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the lower levels some amount of dissatisfaction was evident. The recent starting of a separate wing ‘People’s Development’ is a very right step to tackle the issues related to human resource. Pratham Gujarat has enough opportunities in the rural sector and it can really work magic in adult education. By starting Rural Community Action programme, it has forayed in the rural sector. Similar initiation is required in the field of adult education. Further, more concentration is needed towards improvement of the formal system of education. The strategies followed by Pratham clearly manifest its ideologies. Its strategies like scaling and cost cutting are clearly evident in the programmes it follows. Though it needs more structured and systemized approach as its scale and scope of operations are increasing.

REFERENCES Websites 1. www.infochangeindia.com 2. www.pratham.org 3. www.prathamguj.org 4. www.prathamusa.org 51

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Books 1. Chavan, Madhav (2000) Building Societal Missions for Universal Pre-school and Primary Education. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning Publications. 2. We Are Pratham (April, 2004): Pratham Resource Centre Publication,Mumbai.

Annexure 1 Pratham’s presence in India

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Annexure 2 Chronology of Events Chronology Baroda

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February 1999 - Pratham Vadodara established

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March 1999-All municipal schools surveyed and visited

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April 1999- mobilized and trained 20 balskahies to work with 100 children.

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July-August 2000 - Formation of Pratham Baroda Trust

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July 2000 - Shekhar deputed by LIC to work in Pratham

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Sep 2000 - Human chain from Kishanwadi to Savad to declare the area covered

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Nov 2000 - MIT research started

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Dec 2000-Jan 2001 - MIT Research

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Monal Jayram

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2002 - Shekhar Hardikar (leaves Pratham

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2002-2003 - CAL program began

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April 2003 - Lekha leaves Pratham

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June-July 2003 – Baroda Trust dissolved

Chronology Kutch •

June 2001 – Initiation of first Pratham program at Anjaar in Kutch by Mitesh Thakkar, Farida Lambay, and Sanjeeb Kundu.

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July-August 2001 – Training and mobilization of supervisors and balsakhis and began with 250 units in Anjaar

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October-November 2001 – Bhuj and Bhachau mobilization

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November 2001 – Bridge courses started across Kutch with mobilization and surveys

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December 2001 – Rappar Mobilization

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January 2002 – Bal Vikas Din (big celebration held with 20 schools in Anjar for the children)

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April 2002- the inschool classes ended for the year.

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June 2002 – enrollment program began

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Nov-Dec 2002 – Lagaan technique was introduced in Kutch and became a part of the bridge courses.

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December 2002- began catalytic program and started new locations

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Jan 2003 – TLM workshop (create original and creative stories and balgeets for children).

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February 2003 – Library project began

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February 2003 – Reading technique came to Kutch and was integrated into their classes.

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May 2003 – Community participation (VEC) program started with a series of 3 workshops to train Pratham staff in Kutch on how to work in and with rural communities.

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May 2003 – An experiment on community participation was done in Worli village in Bhuj district. The Worli village has since become entirely independent and manages their educational issues on their own.

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June 2003 – Survey and mobilization of various villages in Kutch to work with.

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August 2003 – Gram Sabhas and meetings with Mother-Teacher Associations (MTA) and Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) were held in villages.

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August 2003 – all children in government schools surrounding villages working with were tested to gauge their reading levels.

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September 2003 – classes started in the villages using the changed version of the Reading Technique after Read Ahmedabad.

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January 2004 – Government asked Pratham to attend its training with BRCs and CRCs to learn their new technique of teaching to read, Wagale.

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January 2004 – Created new reading technique as a combination of Waghle and Read technique.

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April 2004-Anjar made main office in Kutch, and other offices basically closed. Direct programs closed.

Chronology Surat

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2001 -Surat Round Table was identified by Mitesh Thakkar as a group which could start balwdis with Pratham funding

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February 2002 Vishal Pradhan came to Surat to observe the surroundings to gauge what programs should be started in Surat.

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April 2002 - Pratham Surat opened by Shekhar Deshmukh and Vishal. School readiness program and in school classes began running.

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April-June 2002 – classes for out of school children began

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February 2003 – outreach program for child laborers began

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2003- -National Open School Program started in Surat. At the end of the 2003 school year 54 of the 64 students taught appeared for the exam.

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2004 – 150 students appeared for the NOS exam

Annexure 3 Focused Group Discussions with the following Pratham Employees 1. Jeevan Arekal, PO (Direct, Bharooch) 56

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2. Nandita, PL (Direct) 3. Naina, PO (EMI, Ahmedabad)) 4. Mandira. PO (Outreach Surat) 5. Louis, PO (Direct) 6. Vijay, PO ( Direct, Surat) 7. Monal PL (Direct) 8. Gaurav, PO (Accounts Ahmedabad) 9. Rasmi, PO ( Accounts Bharooch)

TABLE OF CONTENT

GUJARAT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE..........................................................................11 11. STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AT PGEI................................................32 GETTING FUND IS NEVER A PROBLEM....................................................................48

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