This module can cater to several learning difficulties at once!

Realising that the students he taught in class 1 of Sant Asharam English School in Naroda had learning abilities that fell on both extremes, Kushal Dattani ended up developing a module that would help teachers cater to different learning levels in the same class.

"I realised that the grade 1 students I was teaching did not even have the skills in English required of senior or junior kg students. So it was important to develop a module that would help me work with children with wide variety of learning abilities in the same class," said Dattani, who at that time was a Teach for India Fellow.

Dattani following his fellowship further developed the model by working with eight students of four different schools in which the Teach for India Fellows work.

Dattani's module included testing and training the children for various academic milestones while in the same class and ensuring that these milestones were achieved before a child moved to a new learning. In fact, he got the parents of students with learning difficulties involved in the module so that they could help the students. "Since many of the parents themselves did not know English, I used Hindin phonic language to help the parents pronounce English words so that they could teach their kids," said Dattani.

Dattani, who has now taken his module titled Samait Shala to affordable schools on a commercial basis, says he concentrates on schools that will continue the work once the training is over. "I charge them just 40% of what it costs me and try to make do the rest with funding," said Dattani.

He said during his work with children, he saw children gaining 1 to 1.5 years worth of learning growth with just 8 months of support. "Many times though children are in particular class, their understanding of the subject is way below that class. It has been my observation that if we put the interventions through the module early in school, children are likely to catch up faster,"s aid Dattani.

He said later intervention particularly by class 5 to 6 means, many times both the students and teachers have already resigned to the fact that a student can't learn a particular thing.