Interns for Education Work in India

 Pratham, a leading Indian Non-Governmental Organization, seeks Research Assistants to work on a variety of projects in one of its Indian offices. 

Research Assistant Work May Include:

·         Assessing the achievement of Pratham education programs across India

·         Education and development-related research, with a focus on Indian issues

·         Analytical work on regional and national surveys including Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)

·         Helping investigate the progress of Read India, an education campaign to double arithmetic/language performance of Grades I-V in India by 2009

·         Helping establish regional Pratham Research hubs and increase research/analytical capacity in these areas

·         Report writing and documenting Pratham primary research

 Research Assistant positions available in: Delhi, India and Mumbai, India

 Qualifications Required:

·         Bachelor’s degree (social science/management related field preferred)

·         Cultural sensitivity, flexibility, ability to learn quickly on the job

·         Managerial and analytical skills to successfully carry out assigned tasks

·         Ability to work independently and proactively

·         Excellent English writing skills; Hindi or Marathi language skills a plus

·         Proficiency with Microsoft Excel or STATA a plus

·         Willingness to learn quickly

·         Time commitment of a minimum of 2 months, beginning summer 2008

 We Offer:

·         Professional work atmosphere with one of India’s largest NGOs

·         Grass-roots field work in a country of increasing global significance

·         Training with leading industry statistical software

·         Opportunities to travel across India

Please send your CV and cover letter to:

Pushkar Sharma, email: pushkarmsharma@gmail.com

 
For more information visit:

www.pratham.org

A Brief on Pratham and ASER

About Pratham                                                                                     

Pratham is a large-scale citizens’ initiative that started in Mumbai in 1993-94 with the objective to bring every child to school and ensure they learn well.  Today operating in 17 states, over 57 cities and in several hundred rural blocks all across India, Pratham’s basic principle is to bring citizens, government, and industry together to ensure the universalization of elementary education. The funds to support Pratham come largely from Indian and multinational business-industry, from individuals in India and abroad, and in some cases from the government. Pratham projects are located in schools in rural and urban areas working with government school teachers and with local, state, and central governments.  Some Pratham initiatives include:

­

• Pre-school children and Early Learning programs:  Targeting 3-5 year old children, Pratham’s early childhood education program provides early reading programs through Balwadis (preschools).

·         Learning programs:  Using accelerated learning techniques in school and out of school children are helped to read fluently, do basic arithmetic, and learn to write in a period of 2-3 months.

• Children’s Libraries: Pratham operates community and school libraries in order to foster reading and learning environment.  A separate trust, Pratham Books, works closely with Pratham to bring out good quality, colorful books for children at low cost.

­

About the 2006 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER):

The Annual Status of Education Report, ASER, is a citizens’ initiative to understand the status of elementary education in India.  Facilitated by Pratham, ASER 2006 surveyed 549 rural districts, in which 30 villages were selected randomly and 20 households in each village were visited. In all about 1.07 million mothers and children (age 3 to 16) were surveyed in October and November 2006. The key findings are:

Enrollment: In the 7-10 age group, 95.3% children are enrolled in school.  Among 11-14 year olds, all India enrollment stands at 91.1%.  However in some states the proportion of girls in this age group who are not going to school is alarmingly high, like Rajasthan (19.6%) and Bihar (17.6%). 

­­­­­­­­­­­

Reading and arithmetic: Nationally, 73% of children in Std 1 and 2 can at least recognize alphabets and 59.3% can recognize numbers up to 100.  About 56% of children in Std 1-5 CANNOT read a Std 1 level paragraph and 55% cannot do a division problem (3 digit by 1 digit) correctly.

­­­­­

Mothers and children: 10% of the children of mothers who did not attend school are out of school versus 2.5% children of mothers with schooling.  Similar disadvantages for children of un-schooled mothers are visible in children’s learning levels as well. 

ASER 2006 Rural national report is available on www.pratham.org.

|