Small steps for a big leap

Making foundational years impactful for every child

Tiny tales: Stories from early education

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Why ECCE Collective

The people who will sit in the seat of power in 2042 are today in our Anganwadis and pre-schools. It is imperative to offer the best holistic development to ensure their future success and for all those who will look to them for leadership. To address the problem at this magnitude and scale, collective action becomes pivotal. To accelerate our efforts to bring quality education in early childhood, we are proposing collective action.

This is an opportunity for various organizations working in early childhood education, the government and other influencers to come together to make this collective action in ECCE an effective one. In this collective, we will discuss, debate, co-create and implement programs to build a stronger narrative around early childhood education and leadership in ECCE.

One way to increase the speed of change is to multiply the number of acts of improvements that are small, tangible, replicable and easy to implement across spaces and geographies. These micro improvements will eventually lead to large-scale systemic change. We have seen the power of this approach to bring systemic change in the schooling system. And we believe it’s a perfect opportunity to bring a similar change in early education.

Through this collective, we hope to bring diverse organisations who will bring in their expertise and knowledge to drive the idea of micro improvements and weave it into early childhood education.

Micro Improvements for Building a Better Future

Micro-Improvement is an age-old concept that we have been applying to our daily life, sometimes consciously and at times subconsciously. It encourages the user to divide their time-consuming & complex long-term objectives into easy-to-do, short and simple steps with visible outcomes. The approach allows users the space to exercise their agency and pave their way to achieve the desired objectives, building their confidence and motivation to continue on the path of improvement. It’s the ultimate way to overcome the challenge of complexity and overwhelming demands of a big goal in any domain.

For K-12 education system in India, micro-improvements are enabled digitally as Projects on DIKSHA – the National Infrastructure for Education by the Ministry of Education, GoI, and are available to teachers, teacher educators and schools leaders on their mobile phone. Each micro-improvement on DIKSHA lends itself to a repository of best practices and innovations that other educators from across the country can discover, learn from and implement according to their needs. At Vidya Amrit Mahotsav, a national education festival organised to encourage and nurture pedagogical innovations, more than six lakh micro-improvements were recorded in 2022-23.

If you want to know more about micro improvements in ECCE or want to co-create programs, write to amrutha@makkalajagriti.org

Unbundle 3.0: Reimagining the Role of Leadership with Micro-Improvements

Unbundle is a design-thinking cum expert session to unbundle policies related to education and education leadership. After organising virtual Unbundles for about 2 years and a long wait to be able to do this in person, we finally got together with 20+ participanting organisations at Unbundle 3.0. Co-orchestrated with EkStep Foundation, Makkala Jagriti and Mantra4Change, this time we deep dived into the concept of micro-improvements (read the four part series on the approach here).

NCERT is currently orchestrating Vidya Amrit Mahotsav to encourage, recognise and nurture pedagogical innovations by teachers, teacher educators and school leaders. These stakeholders are employing the micro-improvements approach to conceptualise, plan and implement the innovations.

We brought together the different NGOs and institutions as we believe they can benefit from the Mahotsav opportunity by getting their stakeholders – teachers and school leaders – to participate and celebrate their wins.

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How the education of one girl can impact generations ahead

Both of Mercy’s parents worked in the unorganised sector, who could not afford her school fees. She joined Makkala Jagriti Learning Centre at the age of 11, and always found the facilitators to be warm, welcoming and encouraging. Makkala Jagriti also supported her to pursue her education.

“We had a lot of freedom to explore our interests and talents. They taught us life skills and values. It was a new world for me.”

– Mercy

Through the Yuva Jagriti career guidance programme, Mercy received the right kind of insight and encouragement that led her to pursue a degree in Commerce, that too through a merit seat. Being the first girl in her family to study that far, she set an example in her community and made choices that allowed her to move beyond the circumstances that she was born into. Mercy now works in a reputed bank and is among our celebrated many who not only made a difference in their own lives but continue to do so in that of others.

Turning a Misguided Youth into a Community Leader

Prabhu was a teenager when the old, dilapidated building in which his family lived collapsed, leaving them without a home. While they were still grappling with the situation, Prabhu lost his father, the sole earning member of the family. Unable to process his difficult circumstances, he found strength in hanging around with his friends, who often indulged in gang wars and all forms of abusive behaviour.

Prabhu was a shy yet playful boy when he joined the Yuva Jagriti centre at the age of 15. He expressed, “I feel I am at crossroads, not sure which road to take”. Following our support and guidance, he decided to pursue an internship at Makkala Jagriti. He was entrusted to work with children from Shelter Homes. Today, Prabhu is a sought-after Creative Facilitator and Coordinator at Makkala Jagriti, managing three Community Centres. A silent yet sound performer, he brings in diverse and highly creative ways to engage children and help them learn and grow.

From a 10th Std. dropout to a World Taekwondo Champion

Murali lived in Bengaluru with his brother, while his parents lived in a village in Tamil Nadu. After his 10th grade, he lost the interest and inclination to study further. When he joined Yuva Jagriti, he started learning Taekwondo at our centre, which helped him become calmer and more focused. He also showed immense capacity to work with children, especially in the areas of sports and creativity, and this landed him an opportunity to work with Makkala Jagriti. Alongside his work, he pursued Taekwondo and competed at the District, State and National levels. He won a number of Gold Medals.

Today, Murali is an accomplished Taekwondo instructor, teaching at many schools in Bengaluru. He brought great accolades to the Nation when he won two bronze medals at the World Taekwondo Championship in Korea in September 2017.

Breaking the language barrier for migrant children

Barnalli, a seventh grade student at Government Primary School, Somasundrapalya, is a child of migrant parents from Assam. Unable to speak the local language, Kannada, she found it difficult to adjust to school and struggled to mingle with other children.

“When you are new to a place and don’t know anyone, it is hard to fit in. She didn’t have any friends in school.”

– Barnalli’s mother

Makkala Jagriti’s language development program came to her rescue.

“Although I was in a higher grade, the HDLC facilitator taught me Kannada right from the basics. The different activities and sessions helped me grasp the language easily and quickly. Over time, Kannada moved from being just a new language to my favorite subject. Learning Kannada helped me enjoy school a lot more. I became a class leader and also started representing the school in inter-school competitions!”

– Barnalli

Equipping parents to become positive influencers

Manoj, a 12-year-old boy, hails from a family of garment workers who had migrated from Andhra Pradesh. On moving to Bengaluru in 2018, he joined the Government Primary School in Ulsoor. The drastic change in his environment and culture left him feeling withdrawn and fearful. He refused to speak or participate in any school activity. Over time, he conﬁded in our HDLC facilitator about feeling neglected by his parents in such diﬃcult circumstances.

Manoj’s mother was invited to participate in Makkala Jagriti’s parents’ workshop. The two-day residential workshop allowed her to reﬂect on her own mindset, biases and relationship with her son. At the end of it, she made a conscious decision to work on rebuilding and restoring her relationship with Manoj. At school, our facilitator noticed that this had a direct impact on his performance. He became more participative and improved in his academics. Manoj later shared with the facilitator that his relationship had become more harmonious and positive with his mother.

Nammoora Anganwadi

We have seen great transformation take place when parents and community members are involved in shaping learning spaces for children and understand the importance of preschool education. The Anganwadi at Katamnallur, Bengaluru, transformed from a dull space to a vibrant and colourful learning centre, where children love to visit every day and parents and community members gather to participate in various activities.

“When we started our intervention, we saw that the environment at the Anganwadi was not safe or conducive for children. Although the community could contribute to the Anganwadi’s development, there was a major gap between the community, local leaders and Anganwadi teachers.”

– Gouri, Coordinator

Through community celebrations and fun events, we involved community members in the Anganwadi activities. As their participation grew, their understanding about the significance of early learning and development also increased and they readily contributed to the centre’s development.

“Community involvement in Anganwadi is so important. Inspired by Makkala Jagriti’s work, we saw the community, parents and Bala Vikas Samithi members come together and show greater ownership towards the Anganwadi.”

– Subramanya Swamy, Doddabanahalli Gram Panchayat Member

A Library with Toys!

In an effort to ensure that every household in the Anganwadi community had access to child-friendly learning materials, we started a novel initiative called ‘Toy Library’, which allowed parents to borrow toys and learning resources for their children.

“The Toy Library has been very useful for children. Whatever we teach at Anganwadi, they can continue learning at home independently. Parents also feel more equipped to engage their children at home. No wonder, within just two months of its launch, over 100 toys were borrowed from our Anganwadi.”

– Bhavya, Anganwadi teacher

The Toy Library concept was welcomed by the community and the time spent on learning at home increased!

“My child always preplans what he’d like to take home from the Toy Library. He has also become very responsible in maintaining the toys because he knows he must return them! In the past 3 months, we have borrowed 20 times already.”

– Shwetha, Parent, Vijayanagara Anganwadi, Doddaballapur

Empowered Teachers Create Better Learners

To ensure children get quality pre-school learning opportunities in the Anganwadi, we empower the teachers and helpers through enhancing their knowledge, skills and attitude towards early learning and development.

“Through Anganwadi trainings, I have changed in a positive way and gained confidence about myself – especially in terms of catering to all domains of early learning. I have even started making learning materials by myself to teach children”.

– Nirmala, Anganwadi teacher, Rojipura

We train teachers and helpers on experiential learning methods that can be practiced at their centres. We also organise Mothers’ Meetings and regular mentoring visits to provide on-the-job support and guidance to teachers. Anganwadi helpers are empowered to become co-teachers and have an important role in the children’s learning process, thereby not confining them to just cooking and cleaning.

“I was used to just cooking and cleaning in the Anganwadi and did not do much else. However, after I attended the ECCE trainings, I realized I had a lot of potential and could engage and teach the children just like a teacher. Now, when the teacher is absent, I engage children in preschool learning activities.”

– Rukmini, Helper, Jyothinagar Anganwadi

From giving little time to learning, to prioritizing pre-school learning and spending more quality time with children, Anganwadi teachers and helpers have come a long way.

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