Enrichment of School Education: Mapping Pedagogical Alternatives

The mandate of the Univers alization of Ele mentary Education has been s een to be accompanied by the crea tion of paralle l a lternatives of education for the marginalized children in many developing countries . In this s ector an area that is progress ively gaining s ignificance is that of collaborative interventions by the government and voluntary organizations . This paper address es the pedagogical pract ices in alternative s chools across divers e contexts and the ma ins treaming challenges . To gauge the impact of s uch interventions in a comprehens ive manner th is s tudy was taken up in varying s ocio-cultural and community contexts in India. Under the Programme for Enrich ment of School Level Education, four s ets of institutions were studied for their teaching learning process es . The pedagogical process es in the areas of language, mathe matics and environmental s tudies we re comparatively analys ed in relation to their res pective curriculu m and learner contexts . One major d imens ion of the study was to explore the s trategies adopted for the mains tream ing and the poss ibilit ies of ups caling of thes e interventions . The analys is of the pedagogic process es revealed their tremendous potential in enriching the mains tream s ys tem through innovative practices in teaching, creating optima l learn ing environment and relat ions hip building with lea rners