Open Links Foundation

We seek to improve quality of education by supporting and motivating teachers. Teachers are they key for implementing education reforms. Yet teachers are most burdened, least supported and least celebrated. Teachers spend only 19% of their time on teaching and teaching-related activities. Meanwhile the rest of their time is spent on non-teaching core activities (over 42%), as well as school management and other education department related work (38%) as per the report by the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA). How do we identify areas for change and impact? We are working with government data to understand the possible interventions and how it can simplify and save time for teachers. Quality of education is also dependent on the performance of the education management. Just the Pune district has over 3,600 govt primary schools in rural areas. These require a large management apparatus – cluster heads, block heads and district education officers. Lot of their work intersects with teachers in schools. There is lot of exchange between teachers and education administration. It is equally important to simplify their work and save them time – so that they can direct, support and motivate teachers to perform better. Vinoba is a technology and behaviour science led program for teacher (and administrator) support and motivation. The Vinoba app is the backbone of the program. The program provides platform and community to - identify opportunities to simplify work and save time for teachers and administrators- identify opportunities and create placeholders for Teacher (and administrator) recognition - Provide tools for capacity building - Provide tools for Program Implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The solution presently operates in 16 districts (9 in Maharashtra and 7 in Chhattisgarh. The solution services the Zilla Parishad schools in these districts – which are primary schools in rural part of the district.