Sanjhi Sikhiya

Supported by: Wipro

About Sanjhi Sikhiya

Sanjhi Sikhiya is working towards the mission of ensuring that ‘All children in Punjab will attain foundational capabilities in an enabling environment.’

This mission has led us to:

• Work closely with the Education Department
• Operate at every level of the system
• Partner with other organizations

Almost three years ago, when we set out on this path of bringing in systemic reforms in the public education system of Punjab, we decided that we would look at this wicked problem through a very long-term lens. We also knew that to make the public education system a top priority for people, we need many more advocates and champions who bring out several stories of change to build a narrative. Hence, we formed a collective movement of young professionals that aim to transform the public education system of Punjab by enabling dialogs and forming communities. Apart from strengthening institutions and supporting stakeholders in 2 districts – Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib, our team also does policy and practices advocacy at the state level to enable effective learning and governance across Punjab.

Our Vision: To transform Punjab into a land of Hope, Courage, and Possibilities.

Our Goal: Effective Learning and Governance practices across all government primary schools of Punjab by 2025.

Current Programs

In the two districts, we implement the Cluster Transformation Program (CTP) through young leaders who join the Punjab Youth Leaders Program (PYLP). PYLP is a program for young people to contribute towards Punjab’s development. This 2-year long leadership development program brings together individuals who have shown exceptional leadership potential and provides them access to the network, credibility, and resources required to lead Punjab in the 21^st century. The program enables young leaders to work towards improving the quality of education in government primary schools of Punjab and to work closely with the district and block officials of the Punjab Education Department. The program currently has strength of 20 young leaders covering 300 schools directly and 1400 schools through the district stakeholders. The young leaders are working towards developing a shared vision for an entire education block of 50 schools in rural and semi-urban regions. The focus of the program is on improving learning outcomes in government primary schools by forming teachers’ collective, driving community ownership, and strengthening local governance.

The team at the state level, Punjab Education Collective (PEC) has been working closely with the Department since August 2019. Three other organizations – Mantra4Change, Samarthya, and ShikshaLokam – collaborated with us to identify challenges faced by the stakeholders on the ground, co-create solutions to effectively address these challenges and bring in micro-improvements. The organizations in the collective bring their expertise, a variety of ideas and solutions, and develop a deeper understanding of the needs of the system. The program aims to create value for the 1.3 lakh plus education leaders in the system by strengthening their interactions and interventions with the schools.

Our Approach

The root cause of the education crisis is leadership deficit at the school and community level. We identify high potential young change makers and place them with a cluster of government schools for two years (a cluster typically comprises 8-10 schools in a particular district and within a specific radius). They drive systemic change in the public education system by mobilizing local community support, filling knowledge gaps, facilitating collective problem solving, and thereby enabling sharing and collaboration across the cluster. With teachers, they focus on improving teaching-learning practices, and with the community, they focus on improving local ownership of the school. The campaign that is run at the village level is – ‘Pind da school, Pind da maan’. The objective of this approach is to enable the “Learning Principles” in the schools while keeping the bigger picture in mind.

Location

We are currently present in Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala districts of Punjab through Punjab Youth Leaders Program (PYLP) while working with the Punjab State Education Department in Mohali/Chandigarh through Punjab Education Collective (PEC).