What We Do

Every Child is talented and has the potential to excel in their education and career, but sadly according to Pratham’s Annual Status of Education 2013 report, close to 78 % of children in Standard III and about 50 % of children in Standard V cannot read Standard II texts in rural areas, similar scenario prevails in urban areas.

We intend to provide these children supplementary/ complementary support in communication skill, thus enhancing their class appropriate English proficiency to excel in their education and career.

Problem statement :

Education in India:

With more than 74,000 schools India operates the biggest education system in the world. In recent decades India has made significant progress in access to schooling and enrollment rates in primary education. With the enactment of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), on 4 August 2009 various schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Mid-day meals were initiated to universalize primary education. According to SSA statistics, in 2014- 2015, the net enrollment rate is 99.85 percent for Primary Schools in India. By and large India has achieved the MDG of Universalizing primary education in India.

Achievement at the cost of quality:

Goal is achieved but several educational reports show that children are not achieving class-appropriate learning levels. In urban government and aided schools, class VI student cannot read a class III English Text book. This is the condition of our primary school children.

With English as a medium of learning, it becomes critical for a student to be able to read, comprehend and communicate in English at class - appropriate level.

This is the problem at primary level, which most of us are unaware of and is often ignored.

Well, let’s look at the consequences of this unattended problem.

A Glimpse of current scenario of graduates:

According to NASSCOM, only 25% of technical graduates are suitable for employment in the industry because of their inability to speak or write well in English (Karnik, 2007) . A Times of India report dated 15 July 2014; states that less than 1 out of 4 engineering graduates are employable. The National Employability Report, Engineering Graduates -2014 revealed that only 18.33% of the engineers are employable and only 18.09% actually get a job. (Times of India, 15 July, 2014)

In another report - Times of India ( 24 August 2015) states that “Chennai engineering grads rank low on English”. Among a sample of 30,000 graduates surveyed across six metro cities including Delhi, Mumbai-Pune, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad, Chennai has the highestnumber of engineers in the lowest scale of A1 - 34.3% and only 0.2% on the highest level of C2.

The grading was based on SVAR - a spoken English assessment tool used by many industries in the country prior to hiring employees. The automated test judges parameters such as fluency, active listening, vocabulary, grammar, spoken English comprehension and pronunciation. The SVAR scores were mapped to CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference), the international standard for measuring Spoken English, where C2 grading is the highest level of spoken English while A1 grading is the lowest level.

In the tough competitive world today, much of the success depends upon the communicative competence of the professionals. Apart from technical skills, communicative skills also carry an equal importance. Language learning is basically skill based learning. In India, learning English language is considered as a subject and not as a skill.

Enormous problem at hand, yet solution exists!

To produce a good quality fruit one has to nurture the sapling at early stage and enable it to grow into a tree that can stand strong and be productive.

Similarly, to produce Empowered Citizens , Employable Graduates , Educated Students, and we need to nurture them at the primary level.

Grass Roots Foundation’s vision:

Our vision is to Empower children and youth to be agents of change, we strongly believe good quality education from young age would be the bridge for meaningful employment, with strong character formation to build a new society for themselves and for all of us. We aim to - to make a difference in the society as a way of giving back to the society that is sustainable.

Our focus is to enable the Children

• Pursue higher education as per their choice with strong passion to excel in life.
• Demonstrate high proficiency in English communication skills to be easily integrated into the regular society.
• Exhibit strong leadership skills and the character necessary to become agents of change in the society.

As a spinoff of this project, we would be addressing two other serious problems

1. Trained trainers are in acute shortage, the program will contribute to the pool.

2. Graduate trainee teachers who partner with us would undergo “Training Of Trainers” Program and gain hands on experience on tailor made experiential learning / teaching methodologies who then be would be ready to impart the same in their chosen field.