Guided Offline Approach to Learning (GOAL): Demonstration of Success in Class 10 Results from a Rural School in South India

Authors: S. Rangarajan

Pages: 31-36

Abstract:

Providing first-rate education for everyone is necessary to reap the demographic dividend for countries like India, but hasremained a stiff challenge to achieve. For students in rural areas, successfully completing their first public examination at theend of class X, referred to as Senior School Leaving Certificate (SSLC), is an important landmark. Unfortunately, the pandemicseriously affected the schooling system for nearly two academic years. Thus a majority of students in the under servedcommunities were ill prepared to take this examination in March 2022.In this context, a special intervention, namely, Guided Offline Approach to Learning (GOAL), was implemented in a schoolcatering to village students near Bengaluru, India. This intervention was introduced to the first batch of first generation studentsfor a limited period. It resulted in improving the overall class performance on the final exam by 21.2% with reference to abaseline performance just 5 weeks prior, without altering the dispersion in the data. This paper discusses the scheme, theimplementation details and quantifies the achieved successes. It also presents the lessons learned and the way forward if suchinitiatives are to be scaled up.