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Systemic Transformation of School Education - The SATH-E Experience

Seema Bansal Garima Batra

In the last decade, despite several efforts to improve the quality of school education through innovative interventions in assessments, teacher & leadership training and curriculum, improvements in learning outcomes have been limited and slow. To address this, BCG in association with NITI Aayog and Piramal Foundation has been driving a marquee education transformation program “Project SATH” since 2017 in 3 states - Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, to improve learning outcomes. To better enable other states starting on a similar transformation journey, BCG in association with NITI Aayog and Piramal Foundation released a report titled "Systemic Transformation of School Education – The SATH-E Experience" that captures reform efforts taken up so far as well as the challenges, successes, and learnings from the ongoing programs in 3 SATH-E states. The report also captures experiences and learnings from other States which have undertaken a similar transformative journey such as Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

The report begins with a background to the education sector and presents a theory of change defining the key elements and principles for systemic transformation, to address existing challenges. Further, interventions are detailed with examples of best practices, success stories and case studies. Specifically, the proposed interventions are founded on five pillars (i) focus on academic reforms (ii) strengthening human capacity (iii) strengthening administrative systems (iv) driving accountability and (v) creating a shared vision for change.

It puts forth a new approach to transforming public school education in India. This novel approach, which can be customized by states across the country, is aimed to improve the quality of education in government schools and address the issue of poor learning outcomes. It also includes 11 implementation toolkits that delve into the details of how each reform initiative was designed and implemented in State-specific contexts.