Call for Expressions of Interest – Aga Khan Foundation India

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) has been working for more than 25 years to improve the quality of education in the developing world, with particular attention to ensuring opportunities for disadvantaged children through its school improvement programmes. In India, the Foundation has been addressing similar issues through the Programme for Enrichment of School Level Education (PESLE), co-funded by the European Commission and Canadian International Development Agency. The programme is currently operating in four states across the country in both urban and rural areas, reaching out to disadvantaged children across 2,000 schools. Servicing the field of education since 1986, AKF India has attained credibility for its innovations, teaching learning processes and belief in holistic education. The PESLE programme has marked a phase of consolidation, outreach and trialing of mainstreaming.
As the Programme for Enrichment of School Level Education (PESLE) nears its close in June 2007, the Aga Khan Foundation feels the need to create a platform to develop an integrated understanding of school and its improvement so as to impact the quality of education on a large scale.
The Aga Khan Foundation, India is organising an International Conference on “Scaling up Quality in School Education”, to bring together education practitioners and policy-makers to develop deeper insights enhancing the quality of school education in the Indian context.

The nation has witnessed a variety of programmes attempting to improve the quality of education during this decade. There is now a need to reflect on the experiments, to celebrate successes, examine assumptions and derive lessons for further concerted action to improve school education. Also, public and private partners alike are realising the need for networking with other agencies, programmes and projects in their own and other States for lateral learning. The Conference will provide a platform for discussion of experiences and insights, for sharing successes and attempts, in order to identify a collective way forward.

Objectives

• Sharing of experiences of Aga Khan Foundation and other organisations in large-scale programmes for improving the quality of school education.

• Drawing broad lessons for scaling-up quality in school education.

• Exploring partnerships to carry the lessons forward.

Broad Themes

• Teacher Development;

• Curriculum, Teaching Learning Materials and Classroom Processes;

• Assessment and Evalution;

• Leadership and School Management;

• Decentralisation: Local Governance and Community Participation;

• Support Systems and Institutions; and

• Research-based Inquiry.

Education practitioners who have been engaged for a period of at least 3 years in a large scale project to enhance the quality of school education are invited to submit a brief (1-3 page) summary of their project, outlining project objectives, strategies, field partners and preliminary impact and learnings, to the address below, by March 25, 2007.

The selected participants will be invited to send in Papers and make presentations by 15th April 2007. All the completed and selected papers will need to be submitted by 16th May 2007.

The Expressions of Interest (and brief summary of projects may be sent at the following address either through post or through email, mentioning the title of the conference in the subject line.

Note. Only selected papers will be shared in the seminar.

http://www.pesle.org/