The Karnataka Learning Partnership, a public-private initiative by Akshara Foundation, the Education Department, Government of Karnataka and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, on Thursday presented the findings of its reading programme conducted across 1309 government primary schools in Bangalore.

The initiative, aimed at improving learning outcomes among primary school children in Karnataka, completed its first phase, implementing a city-wide reading programme.

The Karnataka Learning Partnership team assessed a total number of 1,76,235 children between Classes two and seven in all 1410 government primary schools in Bangalore and found 50% of them needed remedial help in reading.

A total of 69,800 children were put in to an accelerated reading programme during the first trimester of the academic year. In all 4,355 teachers were trained to conduct this programme, during a special one-and –a – half our session, conducted for 45 working days. After 45 story cards and nearly 3 months, the Karnataka Learning Partnership has seen some significant achievements.

Across Bangalore Urban District, 64% children who were classified as ‘non-readers’ in the assessment have become ‘readers’.

Over 95% of children showed movement up the five-point reading scale. Only 2% of the children remained at ‘zero’ Level. After Three months of the programme, 45,000 children have learnt have to read.

Addressing the media, Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, Basavaraja Horatti said that Rs.2 crore had been spent on this programme by Akshara Foundation and the credit for the success of this programme goes to Akshara Foundation.

The minister also appealed to the private sector to join hands with the government in social initiatives.

“Everything cannot be done by government alone. Public-private partnership is the way to go. We should have helping hands from out side the government. Like Infosys, if other firms whose turnovers are in crores, also make some effort to encourage educational programmes, it is possible to improve the education in the state which is lagging behind other states, as most of the children lack basic reading and writing skills”.

According to government statistics, the Education Department spends around Rs 4,200 on each child, which includes teachers ‘salary, uniform, building, food etc, and approximately Rs. 6 crores is spent on education.

Horatti also said that the teachers have and must continue to put in more effort improvising their teaching skills in such programmes.

“The government considers this a successful programme as children have benefited immensely.

Teachers and educators have been enthused about this mission while parents are excited to see their children read better,” Said T.M. Vijay Bhaskar, Education Secretary, Government of Karnataka, “This has now given us the confidence to take this initiative beyond Bangalore to all parts of the state. It is heartening that civil society players like Akshara Foundation have put in so much energy in to this initiative. We look forward to more programmes under the Karnataka Learning Partnership”, he added.

The Karnataka Learning Partnership used technology in a big way to implement and monitor the programme. A comprehensive database of information covering all government primary schools in Bangalore was developed using geographical information systems (GIS), which provided complete information in both text and visual form. A special website www.karnatakalearningpartnership.org was created to track the programme real time and provide up to date information on the programme to all the stakeholders.

“We all know that reading is a primary skill without which even mathematics cannot be understood in our education system”, said Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Akshara Foundation, “the results are there for all to see. Everyone who participated in this exercise feels a sense of great stratification at the huge effort that was put in. It was done in a focused, time bound, efficient manner and has benefited tens of thousands of children. So many of them are now happily engaged to read every thing around them.”